Relations between Calgary and the provincial government in Edmonton hit an all-time low following the 1913 general election, in which the provincial Liberals under Arthur Sifton won a large majority – the size of which they owed in no small part to a blatant gerrymandering of the electoral districts which in particular left Calgary badly under-represented in the legislature. Such was the level of hostility by this time that a serious movement commenced to petition the federal government, by then back in Conservative hands, to admit Calgary and southern Alberta to Confederation as a separate province. At the time, the British North America Act would theoretically have allowed the creation of one province from the territory of another even without the consent of the government of the province concerned. With a sympathetic government in Ottawa the movement to create a separate province might have had some chance of success, had it not been for the outbreak of World War I which naturally diverted the attention of both the government and the public. During the war, the Sifton government chose to align itself closely with the federal government under Robert Borden, eventually supporting conscription over the explicit objections of federal Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier. These decisions helped to ease tensions between Calgary's Conservative elite and the provincial Liberal government in Edmonton. In a low-key election, Sifton led his government to another majority, then left provincial politics to become Minister of Customs in the new "Unionist" government in Ottawa. The new government was essentially a coalition of pro-conscription Liberals and Conservatives under Borden's leadership.