In 1945, Prime Minister Mackenzie King offered Coldwell a Cabinet post in his government. When Coldwell refused, MacKenzie King made another offer, which would have made him the next Liberal leader and, by extension, the Prime Minister of Canada. Again, Coldwell refused, mainly out of loyalty to his party and its principles and he stated that "if the country needed me in the Prime Minister's chair, then it would be at the head of a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government and not as a member of a party with views and politics contradictory to those in which I believed." Rumours that King made Coldwell an offer became public during the 1946 by-election campaign in the Parkdale electoral district. On October 11, while attending a rally for the CCF's by-election candidate, Ford Brand, at Parkdale Collegiate Institute, a partisan audience member asked him about the rumour that he had been offered the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. Coldwell responded by stating that there had been no official offer and that "the Liberals thought they could buy Coldwell. Coldwell is not for sale."