The Easter Riots Commence in Quebec City, March 28, 1918.

Several days of rioting, which would run through April 1, commenced on this day in Quebec City in 1918.

 

An example of a Canadian recruiting poster directed at the residents of Montreal (with which my family has a connection). Such efforts were not entirely successful.  This unit sought to recruit members of the fairly large Irish Canadian community of Quebec.

The underlying cause of the riots was conscription, which was deeply unpopular in Canada in general and hugely unpopular in Quebec, which saw the war as a European affair that they had very little stake or interest in.  404,385 Canadian men became liable for military service under the Military Service Act, which became law on January 1. 385,510 sought exemption and, given the vague nature of the statute, most succeeded.

The immediate cause of the rioting was the arrest of a French Canadian man who failed to present his exemption papers.  He was released, but things soon were totally out of control.  Soldiers had to be called into the city under the War Measures Act of 1914.  The deeply unpopular act and the riots lead to the proposed Francœur Motion under which Quebec was proposed to declare that it would be happy to leave the Canadian union if the rest of the then very English country found Quebec to be "an obstacle to the union, progress and development of Canada".  The motion was not introduced in the end out of a fear of what it would lead to.

In some ways the rioting strongly recalls the reaction that the Irish had to conscription which lead to the Easter Rebellion of 1916. England itself had no tradition of conscription for land service (it did for sea service) and conscription was actually more strongly established in the United States which had required militia service by state in all states up until after the Civil War, with there being outright conscription during the Civil War.  The English accepted it however.  None of the Dominions took well to it and Ireland, part of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, was massively opposed to it.  Originally the Irish were exempted from English conscription but when that was repealed in 1916 it lead to the Easter Rebellion and ultimately to the Anglo Irish War and Irish independence.  Australia rejected attempts to impose conscription in that Dominion in a national plebiscite, while New Zealand on the other hand adopted it.  Canada too adopted it after a prior failed attempt, but as can be seen, it was not a success and it fueled early thoughts of Quebec separation.

The irony of this is that while this was occurring, Ireland, Australia and Canada all contributed large bodies of men to the war voluntarily.  So,in the end, efforts to impose conscription in those localities were at best a waste of time and effort and at worst a cause of net manpower loss.

It's worth noting that conscription remained unpopular in Australia and Canada during World War Two and while both nations imposed it, only late in the war were conscripts required to serve overseas.  In Australia's case disgruntled conscripts were a source of poor units that otherwise stand apart from the really notable fighting qualities of the Australian Army.  Canadian conscripts seem to have accepted their late war fate and generally have worked out well when they were finally required to go overseas.  Ireland was of course independent , although a dominion, by World War Two, and it refused to declare war but once again supplied a large number of troops to the British forces.  Surprisingly Australia twice imposed conscription post World War Two, once during the Korean War and again during the Vietnam War.  Canada briefly followed the British example of Cold War conscription but phased it out very quickly and has never resumed it.