page_title: William Lyon Mackenzie King
section_title: Prime Minister: fifth Parliament, Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: William Lyon Mackenzie King / Prime Minister: fifth Parliament, Second World War
caption_attribution_description: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth talking with Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King on the terrace of the Banff Springs Hotel
context_page_description: William Lyon Mackenzie King OM CMG PC, commonly known as Mackenzie King, was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth prime minister of Canada in 1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. He is best known for his leadership of Canada throughout the Second World War when he mobilized Canadian money, supplies and volunteers to support Britain while boosting the economy and maintaining morale on the home front. A Liberal with 21 years and 154 days in office, he was the longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history. Trained in law and social work, he was keenly interested in the human condition, and played a major role in laying the foundations of the Canadian welfare state.
  King acceded to the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1919. Taking the helm of a party bitterly torn apart during the First World War, he reconciled factions, unifying the Liberal Party and leading it to victory in the 1921 election. His party was out of office during the harshest days of the Great Depression in Canada, 1930–35; he returned when the economy was on an upswing.
context_section_description: PM King accompanied the Royal Couple—King George VI and Queen Elizabeth—throughout their 1939 cross-Canada tour, as well as on their American visit, a few months before the start of World War II.
  Historian George Stanley argues that King's wartime policies, "may not have been exciting or satisfying, but they were effective and successful. That is why, practically alone among wartime 
  governments, his continue to enjoy public support after as well as during the Second World War."
  Historian Jack Granatstein evaluates the King government's economic performance. He reports, "Canada’s economic management was generally judged the most successful of all the countries engaged in the war." He continues:
  The country’s industrial and agricultural effort was enormous — great enough to double the nation’s gross national product between 1939 and 1945....the government took Canada out of the Great Depression into a hyper-organized full-employment era. The federal government invested in building factories and created Crown corporations to produce goods ranging from synthetic rubber to the wood veneers needed for aircraft production. Raw material production during the war amounted to almost $6 billion....Meanwhile, the government dictated who could hold which job and implemented the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. Income and excise taxes soared, profits were capped....There were labour disruptions, of course, but the government did not stand in the way of unionization. Average wages increased by almost two-thirds during the war in a period when there was all the overtime anyone could want. People saved money and, despite rationing, most Canadians ate better than they had during the Great Depression....The government began to move toward social welfare. Unemployment insurance began in 1940, and family allowances came into effect in 1945.
caption: King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and Prime Minister Mackenzie King in Banff, Alberta, 1939
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