Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier's compromise was to send a volunteer force, but the seeds were sown for future conscription protests during the World Wars of the next half-century.

[4] In 1896, he was elected to the House of Commons as an independent Liberal for Labelle but resigned in 1899 to protest the sending of Canadian troops to the Second Boer War.

Bourassa opposed Laurier's attempts to build a Canadian Navy in 1910,[6] which he believed would draw Canada into future wars between Britain and Germany.

[7] Bourassa chose the name Le Devoir for his newspaper because of its emphasis of his commitment to integrity and justice and his desire to serve the public good.

[in Wade, v 2 p. 671] Bourassa led French-Canadian opposition to the participation in World War I, especially Robert Borden's plans to implement conscription in 1917.

His opposition to conscription brought him the anglophone public's disfavour, as was expressed by the hostile crowd amassed in Ottawa that threw vegetables and eggs during his oration.

He was distinctly liberal in his anti-imperialism and general support for civil liberties for French Canadians, and his approach to economic questions was essentially Catholic.

The isolationism of the 1930s and the biculturalism of the 1960s (Bourassa, while a champion of Francophone rights, always opposed separatism) occasioned favourable treatment among Anglophones, while Lionel Groulx, his onetime foe, described him as "l'incomparable Éveilleur".

Bourassa's position on social issues (Catholic, moderately reformist, emphasizing the family and agricultural values) likewise has called forth praise and blame.

[13] Bourassa appears in "The Trial of Terrence Meyers" (February 10, 2020), episode 15 of season 13 of the Canadian television period drama Murdoch Mysteries.