King–Byng affair

The King–Byng affair was a Canadian constitutional crisis that occurred in 1926, when the governor general of Canada, the Lord Byng of Vimy, refused a request by the prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

The prime minister (leader of the Liberal Party) and the governor general agreed in October 1925 that, prior to a new election being called, the Conservative Party should be given the chance to form a government because it had a plurality in parliament. The Conservatives were not given this chance by 26 June 1926, when the prime minister asked the governor general to dissolve parliament anyway. This request was refused. The prime minister resigned and the governor general invited the Conservative Party to form a government. This government lost a motion of no confidence on 2 July 1926, and the governor general agreed to dissolve parliament immediately. Following the election on 14 September, King again assumed the office as prime minister, with a minority government.

The crisis came to redefine the role of governor general throughout the Dominions of the British Empire, becoming a major impetus in negotiations at Imperial Conferences held in the late 1920s that led to the adoption of the Statute of Westminster 1931. According to constitutional convention until then, the governor general represented the sovereign both in his imperial council and in his Canadian council, but the convention evolved afterwards into a tradition of non-interference in Canadian political affairs on the part of the British government. After 1931, the governor general remained an important figure in Canadian governance as a constitutional watchdog, but the role was shorn of its previous imperial duties.