Ottawa’s French-language newspaper, Le Droit, was scathing in its comments about Borden’s leadership and legacy. The views the paper expressed illustrate the French-English divide that would have to be bridged in the aftermath of the Great War. “Canada is less prosperous, less free, less independent than it was in the month of August, 1914,” their editorial read. “The Prime Minister who now retires from office was firmly convinced that the world war would be for him a pedestal and he has not hesitated to bring upon himself the mantle of a great British statesman at the price of the country’s ruin and the mourning of thousands of its children. England may thank him quite generously but Canada cannot forgive him the harm he has done to it.”

In New Brunswick, Borden received more generous comments. “Sir Robert Borden has tendered his resignation as leader of the Government, and It will be received with the deepest regret from one end of Canada to the other, the Saint John Standard said. “No man who ever occupied the position which he has done in the public life of this country more richly deserved the sympathetic regard of the people than he, and it is equally certain no man ever received it in as great measure. The Canadian public had the fullest confidence in him, and he never failed them. It is not necessary to say more. Sir Robert Borden will go down to posterity as the statesman who steered Canada through the most momentous period of her history.”

There was also commentary south of the border. “In the retirement of Sir Robert Borden, Canada, there passes a statesman whose life has been marked by the effectiveness with which he maintained the political equality of Canada and the other Dominions with the Mother Country." said the New York Times.

The newspaper also highlighted his friendship with the U.S.A., "despite his opposition to the passage of a trade reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States in 1911." 

Another American paper, the New York Evening Post, predicted rocky times were ahead for the Union government with Borden no longer at the helm. “Whoever is chosen as his successor faces a difficult task and faces in the new Liberal party a determined and aggressive Opposition under the leadership of Mackenzie King. The Coalition, moreover, has suffered in unity during the long absences of Borden in England and the United States. It has set forth no clear programme; and great as were its achievements in winning the war and beginning reconstruction, it has been regarded as an emergency organization."