General elections were due in the autumn of 1916. It became a
serious question of Liberal policy to decide between agreeing to an
extension of the life of parliament, which the government intended
to request, and the forcing of an election. Two lieutenants of Sir
Wilfrid toured Western Canada sounding Liberal opinion; their
disappointment was obvious when, in a conference with a group of
Liberals in Winnipeg, they found opinion solidly adverse to an
election. Their reasons for an election were plainly stated--in
brief they were that on the details of its war management the
government could be, and, in their judgement, should be, beaten. But
Sir Wilfrid, with his hand on the country's pulse, could not be
stampeded. He saw, more clearly than his lieutenants, the danger to
the party of refusing an extension at that time. A twelve months was
added to the life of parliament with a reservation in the minds of
the Liberals that the first extension would be the last. This meant
an election in 1917.


THE NATIONALISTS AND ONTARIO

Mr. Bourassa was acutely conscious of the development of opinion in
Quebec favorable to the Liberals, and he sought to retain his hold
upon his following by the tactics which in the first place had given
him his following--by going to extremes and outbidding Laurier. The
chief article in the Nationalist creed was that Canada was
everywhere a bilingual country, French being on an equality with
English in all the provinces. This contention rested upon a
conglomeration of arguments, assertions, assumptions, inferences,
and it was backed by thinly disguised threats of political action.