Arthur Meighen was once again sworn-in as Prime Minister on this date in 1926 after William Lyon Mackenzie King did the impossible. With the refusal by Governor General Lord Byng to grant him his request for the dissolution of Parliament, King suddenly resigned as Prime Minister, leaving Canada without a First Minister. This had never happened before, and has (thankfully) not occurred since.
Left without his principal advisor, Byng invited Meighen to form a government and he was quickly sworn-in as PM. Not long after, Byng granted Meighen’s request to dissolve Parliament and Canadians were then in the midst of a bitter election campaign as King again did the unthinkable, this time campaigning as much against the Governor General as he did against Meighen.
Canadians then returned King to power in the September election.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.