Ooh ooh, I can answer this! I'm currently in the process of completing my Masters thesis on conscription in the dominions during the First World War.

Canadians, like Australians and New Zealanders, were very enthusiastic about the war when it broke out. Even French-Canadians were enthusiastic. A commitment for a Canadian contingent was made by the government of Robert Borden and was accepted by the British government. The Canadian military was made up of part time volunteers and a small core of full timers for training. Volunteers came forward in droves and the initial Canadian contingent, numbering 39,267 men departed for Britain in late 1914 and early 1915. Interestingly, less then 30% of those men in the forst contingent were Canadian born with most of the volunteers having been born in England, Scotland or Ireland before migrating to Canada. By the end of the war, only 51% of the entire Canadian wartime commitment was Canadian born. Only 1,245 French-speaking soldiers were part of the first contingent, enough to make up their own battalion but instead were parceled out into mixed units of Canadian and Canadien soldiers. This did nothing to help French-Canadian enlistment who although initially enthusiastic about the war, were not interested in fighting for England or for France and who enlisted in only small numbers.

As the war dragged on into 1915 and then 1916, the volunteers started to dry up. Most of the eligible and willing foreign-born men had already enlisted and volunteers from Canadian-born eligibles and French-Canadians was severely lacking. The Canadian people started demanding that their government do more, to increase the Canadian contribution. Friction was also growing between Anglo-Saxon Canadians and French-Canadians. Anglos viewed low Canadien enlistment as disloyal and demanded the government do something to equalise the burden of sacrifice. French-Canadians were resistant to enlist in a force that by and large did not represent them. The Canadian Expeditionary Force was structured along British lines, instruction and drill was all conducted in English and the experience of French-Canadians who had served in the militia and had been denied involvement in Catholic processions. The previous government of Sir Wilfred Laurier had gone to great lengths to try and limit impositions being made on French-Canada and to ensure Quebecois culture was not threatened. Under Borden, those efforts had been stopped and many French-Canadians viewed impositions and efforts to draw Quebec into a greater war effort as another means of furthering the Conquest, the extinguishment of French-Canadian culture.

By 1917, the reinforcement problem was critical and Borden, returning form a visit to London, announced that he intended to introduce conscription to keep the CEF up to strength. This immediately triggered a revolt in Quebec. The Liberal opposition under Wilfred Laurier and which drew crucial support from Quebec opposed the policy and battle lines were drawn between Anglo-Saxon Canadian and French-Canadians. The most ardent opponent of conscription was Henri Bourassa, the Quebec native who had been a Liberal party MP in Laurier's government until Laurier committed Canadian forces to the war in South Africa in 1899. Bourassa led the French-Canadian anti-conscription movement and was viewed by some, even Laurier, as a potential threat to the Canadian Confederation. There was talk in some circles that Quebec should seced from Canada if conscription were imposed upon it. Thankfully this never eventuated.

Borden didn't really have any major obstacles to introdcuing conscription like his counterpart in Australia did. The truth was that he would have little difficulty enacting conscription via and act of parliament but because some members of his party were French-Canadian wanted to shore up support and cement his position with a mandate from the people. Laurier wanted to hold a referendum on the matter but Borden chose instead to take the issue to the 1017 general election. Prior to this, Borden had also sought to unite his party with Laurier's Liberals and create a Union government for the duration of the war. Laurier, who was actually a moderate on the issue of conscription but who couldn't risk supporting the policy due to his power base in Quebec. refused to join Borden. Unfortunately for the opposition leader, some members of his own party supported conscription and so deserted the Liberals in favour of Borden's Union government.

With the majority of Canada's Anglo-Saxon population behind him, Borden had no issue winning the election and receiving the mandate he sought. Despite the strong likelihood that he would win, Borden did engage in some rather dubious shenanigans to swing the vote further in his favour. To support the conscription platform, the Borden government passed two pieces of legislation that extended and restricted the voting franchise of different groups. The first, the Military Voters Act, allowed all Canadian soldiers to vote, something that had not been available to them during previous conflicts. The second, the War Time Elections Bill enfranchised the female relatives of serving soldiers whilst disenfranchising immigrants who had arrived in Canada after 1902. These two pieces of legislation, designed specifically to target those who were likely to support and oppose conscription, helped to secure the Unionist victory.

Opposition to conscription was not restrained to just the French-Canadian population however, they were just the largest and most vocal group. Anti-militarists such as the Society of Friends, women's anti-militarists leagues and Canada's labour movement also opposed conscription for their own reasons. None of these groups however were able to mount the kind of opposition presented by the French-Canadian population nor did their opposition result in the society rift that developed as a result of the conscription crisis of 1917.

Source: Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada by J. L. Granatstein and J. M. Hitsman

Marching as to War: Canada's Turbulent Years, 1899 - 1953 by Pierre Burton

Worth Fighting For: Canada's Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War of Terror by Michael Dawson, Lara Campbell and Catherine Gideny

Marching to Armageddon: Canadians and the Great War 1914-1919 by Morton Desmond and J. L. Granatstein