King–Byng affair

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

The 1925 Canadian federal election saw King's Liberals winning fewer seats than the Conservatives, who were left eight seats short of a majority. The Progressives lost almost two thirds of their seats from the previous election, but they still held enough seats to control the balance of power. As the incumbent party is given the first opportunity to form government, King decided to attempt to hold on to power with the help of the Progressives. The Progressives were closely aligned with the Liberals and enabled King to form a minority government.

In June 1926, facing a Commons vote that could force his government to resign, King asked Governor General Byng to dissolve parliament and call an election. Byng refused King's request, exercising his reserve powers. King duly resigned, and the governor general invited the Conservative Party to form a government. The Meighen government lost a motion of no confidence on 2 July 1926, and the governor general then agreed to dissolve parliament. 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.