Editing History of Canada (section)

====Domestic affairs====
In 1921 to 1926, William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal government pursued a conservative domestic policy with the object of lowering wartime taxes and, especially, cooling wartime ethnic tensions, as well as defusing postwar labour conflicts. The Progressives refused to join the government but did help the Liberals defeat non-confidence motions. King faced a delicate balancing act of reducing tariffs enough to please the Prairie-based Progressives, but not too much to alienate his vital support in industrial Ontario and Quebec, which needed tariffs to compete with American imports. King and Conservative leader [[Arthur Meighen]] sparred constantly and bitterly in Commons debates.<ref>Dawson (1958) ch 14, 15</ref> The Progressives gradually weakened. Their effective and passionate leader, [[Thomas Crerar]], resigned to return to his grain business, and was replaced by the more placid [[Robert Forke]]. The socialist reformer [[J.&nbsp;S. Woodsworth]] gradually gained influence and power among the Progressives, and he reached an accommodation with King on policy matters.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Bruce |last1=Hutchison |title=The Incredible Canadian |year=1952 |pages=76–78}}</ref>
[[File:KingImperialConference.jpg|thumb|Prime Minister [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] (left) at the [[1926 Imperial Conference]]. King sought to redefine the role of governor general at the conference, as a result of the [[King-Byng affair]] earlier that year.]]
In 1926 Prime Minister Mackenzie King advised the [[Governor General of Canada|Governor General]], [[Julian H.G. Byng, Viscount Byng of Vimy|Lord Byng]], to dissolve Parliament and call another election, but Byng refused, the only time that the Governor General has exercised such a power. Instead, Byng called upon Meighen, the Conservative Party leader, to form a government.<ref name="RussellSossin2009">{{cite book |first1=Peter H. |last1=Russell |first2=Lorne |last2=Sossin|title=Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f9uIZ12yh-UC&pg=PT232|year=2009|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4426-9337-1|page=232}}</ref> Meighen attempted to do so but was unable to obtain a majority in the Commons and he, too, advised dissolution, which this time was accepted. The episode, the [[King–Byng affair]], marks a constitutional crisis that was resolved by a new tradition of complete non-interference in Canadian political affairs on the part of the British government.<ref name="GillisR1986">{{cite book|first1=R. Peter |last1=Gillis |last2=Roach |first2=Thomas R. |title=Lost Initiatives: Canada's Forest Industries, Forest Policy, and Forest Conservation|url=https://archive.org/details/lostinitiativesc0000gill|url-access=registration|year=1986|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-25415-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/lostinitiativesc0000gill/page/219 219]}}</ref>