Cabinet Minister
Meighen served as Solicitor General from June 26, 1913, until August 25, 1917, when he was appointed Minister of Mines and Secretary of State for Canada. In 1917, he was mainly responsible for implementing mandatory military service as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1917. Noteworthy was the government's decision to give votes to conscription supporters (soldiers and their families), while denying that right to potential opponents of conscription such as immigrants. Meighen's portfolios were again shifted on October 12, 1917, this time to the positions of Minister of the Interior and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
He was re-elected in the December 1917 federal election, in which Borden's Unionist (wartime coalition) government defeated the opposition Laurier Liberals over the conscription issue.
As Minister of the Interior, Meighen steered through Parliament the largest piece of legislation ever enacted in the British Empire—creating the Canadian National Railway Company, which continues today. Meighen was re-appointed Minister of Mines on the last day of 1920. In 1919, as acting Minister of Justice and senior Manitoban in the government of Sir Robert Borden, Meighen helped put down the Winnipeg General Strike by force. Though Meighen has often been credited by historians with instigating the prosecution of the Winnipeg strike leaders, in fact he rejected demands from the Citizens' Committee that Ottawa step in when the provincial government of Manitoba refused to prosecute. It took the return to Ottawa in late July 1919 of Charles Doherty, Minister of Justice, for the Citizens' Committee to get federal money to carry forward their campaign against labour.
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