Editing Ernest Lapointe (section)

===Conscription issue===

Lapointe helped draft Mackenzie King's policy against [[conscription]] for overseas service in 1939, and his campaigning helped defeat the Duplessis provincial government in 1939. During the [[1939 Quebec general election|1939 provincial election]], Lapointe made many speeches in the province of Quebec, in which he argued that if Duplessis was to be re-elected, every French Canadian minister would resign from the federal cabinet, leaving it without a francophone voice. Having been a Liberal MP during the 1917 conscription crisis, Lapointe knew how much a new crisis like the last one would destroy the national unity that Mackenzie King had tried to build since 1921. Duplessis lost in a landslide to [[Liberal Party of Quebec]] leader [[Adélard Godbout]], who sought to co-operate with the federal government.<ref name="LapointeBio" />