Ernest Lapointe

Ernest Lapointe PC MP (October 6, 1876 – November 26, 1941) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. A member of Parliament from Quebec City, he was a top adviser to Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King, especially on issues relating to legal affairs, Quebec and French-speaking Canada.

For the ship, see CCGS Ernest Lapointe.
The Right Honourable

Ernest Lapointe

PC MP
Minister of Justice
Attorney General of Canada
In office
October 23, 1935 – November 26, 1941
Prime MinisterW. L. Mackenzie King
Preceded byGeorge Reginald Geary
Succeeded byJoseph-Enoil Michaud (Acting)
In office
September 25, 1926 – August 6, 1930
Prime MinisterW. L. Mackenzie King
Preceded byEsioff-Léon Patenaude
Succeeded byHugh Guthrie
In office
January 30, 1924 – June 28 1926
Acting: January 4, 1924 – January 29, 1924
Prime MinisterW. L. Mackenzie King
Preceded byLomer Gouin
Succeeded byHugh Guthrie (Acting)
Member of the Canadian Parliament
for Quebec East
In office
October 27, 1919 – November 26, 1941
Preceded byWilfrid Laurier
Succeeded byLouis St. Laurent
Member of the Canadian Parliament
for Kamouraska
In office
February 12, 1904 – October 14, 1919
Preceded byHenry George Carroll
Succeeded byCharles-Adolphe Stein
Personal details
Born(1876-10-06)October 6, 1876
St-Éloi, Quebec, Canada
DiedNovember 26, 1941(1941-11-26) (aged 65)
Political partyLiberal
Spouse(s)
Emma Pratte
(
m. 1904)
RelationsArthur-Joseph Lapointe (nephew)
ChildrenHugues Lapointe
Alma materLaval University
OccupationLawyer

Education, early career

Lapointe earned his law degree from Laval University. He was a practicing lawyer in Quebec City, and was appointed Crown Prosecutor for Kamouraska before entering politics.

Enters politics

He was first elected by acclamation to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1904 general election as the Liberal MP for Kamouraska, and was re-elected in 1908, 1911 and 1917. He resigned his seat in 1919 in order to run in the Quebec East seat vacated by the death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and won that.

Cabinet minister

In 1921, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King appointed Lapointe to his first Cabinet as Minister of Marine and Fisheries. During his term as minister of fisheries, he negotiated a treaty with the United States on west-coast fishing rights. This was the first time that a Canadian minister negotiated on foreign affairs without any assistance from Great Britain. In 1924 he became Minister of Justice, and served in that position in successive Liberal cabinets until his death in 1941.

King's Quebec lieutenant

Lapointe served as King's Quebec lieutenant and was one of the most important ministers in Cabinet. King did not speak French; he relied on Lapointe to handle important matters in the province. Lapointe gave a strong Quebecker voice to the cabinet decision, something that had not existed since the defeat of Laurier in 1911.[1]

Lapointe shared King's vision of Canadian autonomy from Britain, and chaired the Canadian delegation to the Imperial Conference of 1926. This led to the drafting of the subsequent Balfour Declaration that raised the status of dominions to one of equality with Britain, and eventually led to the Statute of Westminster 1931. In the late 1930s, Lapointe recommended that the federal Cabinet disallow several Acts passed by the Alberta Social Credit government of William Aberhart. However, he did not recommend disallowance of the Padlock Act passed by the Quebec government of Maurice Duplessis, fearing that doing so would only aid the Union Nationale government.[2]

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 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.

Death

Lapointe died in office in 1941, leaving the Canadian government in serious trouble. King decided to appoint the reluctant Louis Saint-Laurent to the cabinet as the new minister of justice.

His son, Hugues Lapointe, was also a parliamentarian and Lieutenant Governor of Quebec.

Further reading
  • Betcherman, Lita-Rose. Ernest Lapointe: Mackenzie King's Great Quebec Lieutenant (2002). 435 pp.
  • MacFarlane, John. Ernest Lapointe and Quebec's influence on Canadian foreign policy (U of Toronto Press, 1999)
  • Neatby, H. Blair. "Mackenzie King and French Canada." Journal of Canadian Studies 11.1 (1976): 3+
gollark: Also, `skynet.close` would close a channel and not actually the socket - if you really want, do `skynet.socket.close`.
gollark: Ah, you are wrong.
gollark: Ah, you are correct.
gollark: It should?
gollark: You do not need to `skynet.connect`, actually - the functions for skynet handling can do that anyway.

See also

References
  1. Conrad Black, Rise to Greatness: The history of Canada from the Vikings to the present (2014) p 520
  2. Creighton 1970, p. 225

Bibliography
  • Creighton, Donald (1970). Canada's First Century. Macmillan of Canada.
  • Ernest Lapointe – Parliament of Canada biography
  • Biography from Library and Archives Canada
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.