Talk:Arthur Meighen

Untitled
The entry says his name was pronounced MAY-hin. Is there any evidence for this? I heard one of his descendants pronounce the name MAY-in. HistoryBA 17:24, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I heard it pronounced MEE-yin. Earl Andrew 18:07, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I went to high school in Toronto with one of Arthur Meighen's descendents -- I believe the name is pronounced MEE-yin. David James
 * Everyone knowledgeable on the topic of Canadian history (a number of teachers, etc.) I know has pronounced it Mee-yin. Dictionary.com has it like this as well: http://www.reference.com/search?r=13&q=Meighen --The Fwanksta, May 23, 2007, 20:32.

POV!
"This became known as the "King-Byng Affair"—a somewhat spurious attack by Mackenzie King on the Governor General's right to refuse an election where an alternative government is capable of commanding the support of the House of Commons, which right is now well-recognized."

The attack was not spurious in the slightest. It was in fact quite reasonable of King to be upset, because an unelected figurehead had refused the request of the Prime Minister of Canada to dissolve Parliament. The person who wrote the above paragraph is clearly predisposed against the King side of the argument, and that paragraph should be amended accordingly. -142.161.88.129 03:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I quite agree that this phrase "an attack by Mackenzie King on the Governor General's right to refuse an election request by a prime minister" is misleading. From King's perspective - and indeed from the perspective of a great many Canadians at the time - the Governor General's actions, however constitutionally correct, nonetheless constituted an unwarranted intrusion into the affairs of Parliament by an individual who, at the time, was still widely regarded as not merely a representative of the Monarch but, indeed, as a representative of the British government (the point that was expressly cleared up in the Balfour Declaration.)--Ggbroad 21:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It is the prerogative of the Canadian head of state to decline the prime minister's request to dissolve Parliament when, as the original author notes, "an alternative government is capable of commanding the support of the House of Commons" (see Lascelles Principles for the grounds under which the Canadian head of state may reasonably decline his or her prime minister's request for a dissolution). King had no constitutional leg to stand on - and given a similar situation today, the Governor General would still be within her rights to refuse a request to dissolve Parliament. Conceivably, if Stephen Harper lost the support of the House, the GG could ask the Leader of the Opposition if he would be able to form a workable government. Fishhead64, 07:03, 07 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The Governor General was in the right the whole way through the "crisis"...really, King made all the fuss to make it an election issue to contrast with Meighen's unwavering support of Britain. Quite typically for King, he would campaign that Meighen was disregarding British tradition in Ontario, while saying that he was working against Canadian independence in Quebec. It was a beautiful wedge.Habsfannova 14:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * On that note, I can't believe nobody's mentioned "Ready, aye ready" yet. I'll do that now.Habsfannova 14:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Strictly legally speaking, Byng's actions were well within his right. But a lot of the Canadian system is built on customs and traditions, which totally de-emphasize the archaic powers we have still have technically vested in appointed officials. For example, the Governor-General has to sign laws for them to come into effect, but only because no one's bothered to change it because it's not worth the government's time and the taxpayers' money to change it if it never becomes a problem. --The Fwanksta, May 23, 2007, 20:36.

From Manitoba
This statement should be clarified. He was for a time an MP from a Manitoba riding, but he was born in Ontario. The first paragraph makes it sound as though he was Manitobian by birth. --Ggbroad 22:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Meighen biopg1 large.jpg
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Meighen as the first Western Prime Minister?
Arthur Meighen was not the first Prime Minister of Canada to represent a riding in Western Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald began his second tenure as Prime Minister after the defeat of Alexander Mackenzie as the Member of Parliament for Victoria, with Amor de Cosmos, from 1878 to 1882. In the 1882 election, Macdonald ran and won in Carleton, but he was still a "Western-based" Prime Minister for a good four years.

To be fair, Macdonald's connection to Victoria is pretty feeble. However, it is there, and it disqualifies Meighen's claim to be the first Western Prime Minister. Therefore, I've modified that sentence to emphasise his role as the first and to date only Prime Minister to represent Manitoba. Lord Bob 15:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

CNR: "largest piece of legislation"?
The article currently reads: "As Minister of the Interior, Meighen steered through Parliament the largest piece of legislation ever enacted in the British Empire - creating the Canadian National Railway Company, which continues today." What does "largest piece of legislation" mean? The longest act by words? The biggest budget? The most important? Without some clarification this sentence is meaningless. 24.222.119.169 19:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Support for the Zionist project
Meighen is sometimes cited as an early supporter of the Zionist project in Palestine. It would be interesting if we could source this and add it to the article. ADM (talk) 20:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Lost seat as PM
Do I read the article right that Meighen twice lost his seat while PM? This is pretty significant, and should be noted explicitly in the article if true. — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 22:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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something is wrong with the preceded by and Succeeded by links with the entire series of canadian prime ministers. links are not correct.

Osgoode Hall
On 3 January 2008, an editor added a sentence claiming that Meighen attended Osgoode Hall Law School. I recently removed it as unsourced, and contrary to what appears in the scholarly work on Meighen. Another editor returned it with a source, a newspaper article from 2012. The problem is this: Roger Graham's meticulously researched three-volume biography of Meighen makes it clear that Meighen never attended law school. Meighen lived in Manitoba at the time that he decided to pursue a career in the law. "In those days there was no law school in Manitoba. The student prepared himself by being articled to a lawyer, gaining such experience as he might and reading for the examinations set by the Law Society of the province. Meighen's new career got under way with the new century. On January the second, 1900 he took out articles as a student-at-law with Edmund L. Taylor, Q.C., of Winnipeg." (Roger Graham, Arthur Meighen, vol. 1, p. 28) John English's shorter biography of Meighen says the same thing (John English, Arthur Meighen, p. 8) The same information appears in Larry A. Glassford's article on Meighen in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Clearly these sources, all based on extensive research and the result of years of work, are more reliable than a short newspaper article that was probably penned in a day or two. In fact, the newspaper article is likely an example of citogenesis: the author probably found the information on Osgoode Hall in this very Wikipedia article. I have removed the reference to Osgoode Hall again, but would be happy to return it if someone can find a source written by a reputable historian or written before the Wikipedia first made the Osgood Hall claim in 2008. Instant Comma (talk) 16:13, 24 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Kudos to you for rooting out this longstanding error. --  Zanimum (talk) 04:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)