Canadian History for Kids: Robert Borden

September 21, 1911, Sir Robert Borden wins a majority election for the conservative party. This Canadian History for Kids, Sketches of Canada, looks at the life of Canada’s 8th Prime Minister.

Borden had the horrible luck of finding himself having to lead Canada through the Great War of 1914-18. The whole country and its economy stood still for the war, which is something that put a lot of pressure on Borden. It was good leadership by a good man.

Robert Laird Borden was born in 1854 in Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, a farming community at the eastern end of the Annapolis Valley.

From 1868 to 1874, he worked as a teacher in Grand Pré and Matawan, New Jersey. He returned to Nova Scotia in 1874 to article for four years at a Halifax law firm (without a formal university education), and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in August 1878, placing first in the bar examinations

He was elected to Parliament in the 1896 federal election as a Conservative and in 1901 was selected by the Conservatives to succeed Sir Charles Tupper as leader of the Conservative Party.

As Prime Minister of Canada during the First World War, he altered his government to a wartime administration, passing the War Measures Act in 1914. Borden committed Canada to provide half a million soldiers for the war effort. He was forced to institute the Conscription Act of 1917, which made him very unpopular.

Sir Robert Borden retired from office in 1920. Borden died on June 10, 1937, in Ottawa.
 

Canadian History for Kids’ Highlights as Prime Minister

• Emergency War Measures Act of 1914
• Wartime Business Profits Tax of 1917 and the “temporary” Income Tax, the first direct taxation by the Canadian federal government
• Veterans benefits
• Nationalization of bankrupt railways
• Introduction of a professional public service

And that’s this week Canadian History for Kids Sketches of Canada!
 

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