The Canadian Wartime Elections Act (French: Loi des élections en temps de guerre) was a bill passed on September 20, 1917,[1] by the Conservative government of Robert Borden during the Conscription Crisis of 1917 and was instrumental in pushing Liberals to join the Conservatives in the formation of the Canadian Unionist government.
The Act gave the vote to the wives, widows, mothers, and sisters of soldiers serving overseas.
They were the first women ever to be able to vote in Canadian federal elections and were also a group that was strongly in favour of conscription.
[2][3] At the time the act was passed, it was justified through the patriotic fever surrounding World War I.
In the long run, however, the laws so alienated French-Canadians and recent immigrants that they would vote Liberal for decades, greatly hurting the Conservative Party.