Ernest Lapointe (October 6, 1876 – November 26, 1941) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. A member of Parliament from Quebec City, he was a senior minister in the government of Prime Minister
W. L. Mackenzie King, playing an important role on issues relating to legal affairs, Quebec and French-speaking Canada.
Education, early career
Lapointe earned his law degree from
Laval University
Laval means ''The Valley'' in old French and is the name of:
People
* House of Laval, a French noble family originating from the town of Laval, Mayenne
* Laval (surname)
Places Belgium
* Laval, a village in the municipality of Sainte-Ode, Luxe ...
. He was
called to the bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call t ...
in 1898 and practised law in
Rivière-du-Loup
Rivière-du-Loup (; 2021 population 20,118) is a small city on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The city is the seat for the Rivière-du-Loup Regional County Municipality and the judicial district of Kamouraska. Its one of ...
and
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is th ...
.
Enters politics
Lapointe was elected by acclamation to the
House of Commons of Canada
The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada.
The House of Commons i ...
for the riding of
Kamouraska as a
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and ...
through a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
on February 12, 1904. Lapointe was later re-elected in the
1904
Events
January
* January 7 – The distress signal '' CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''.
* January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.
...
,
1908
Events
January
* January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the '' Nimrod'' for Antarctica.
* January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 4 ...
,
1911
A notable ongoing event was the race for the South Pole.
Events January
* January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory are added to the Commonwealth of Australia.
* Ja ...
, and
1917
Events
Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.
January
* January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's ...
federal elections.
Lapointe resigned his seat in 1919 and successfully ran in the
Quebec East
Quebec East (also known as Québec-Est and Québec East) was a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1867 to 2004.
While its boundaries changed over the decades, it was essentia ...
seat vacated by former
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier, ( ; ; November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadian prime minis ...
, who died.
King's cabinet minister and Quebec lieutenant
In 1921, Prime Minister
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was a Canadian statesman and politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A L ...
appointed Lapointe to his cabinet as
minister of marine and fisheries. During his tenure as minister, Lapointe reduced tariffs. In 1924, Lapointe became
minister of justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in ...
, and served in that position until the Liberals'
defeat at the polls in 1930. However, the Liberals under King returned back to power in the
1935 federal election, and Lapointe once again regained his old post. From 1924 to 1930 as justice minister, Lapointe expressed his support for King's commitment to Canadian autonomy and accompanied him at the
Imperial Conference of 1926. Lapointe also chaired the Canadian delegation in the discussions that led to the
Statute of Westminster in 1931.
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.
In the late 1930s, Lapointe recommended that the federal Cabinet
disallow several Acts passed by the Alberta
Social Credit
Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...
government of
William Aberhart
William Aberhart (December 30, 1878 – May 23, 1943), also known as "Bible Bill" for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh premier of Alberta from 1935 to his death in 1943. He was the founder and first leader o ...
, arguing that Aberhart was attempting to grab too much power and encroach the federal government.
Lapointe did not recommend
disallowance of the
Padlock Act passed by the Quebec government of
Maurice Duplessis
Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis (; April 20, 1890 – September 7, 1959), was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 16th premier of Quebec. A conservative, nationalist, anti-Communist, anti-unionist and fervent Catholic, he and his ...
, fearing that doing so would only aid the
Union Nationale government.
Conscription issue
Lapointe helped draft Mackenzie King's policy against
conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
for overseas service in 1939, and his campaigning helped defeat the Duplessis provincial government in 1939. During the
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
The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP; french: Parti libéral du Québec, PLQ) is a provincial political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955. The QLP has always been associated with the colour red; ...
leader
Adélard Godbout
Joseph-Adélard Godbout (September 24, 1892 – September 18, 1956) was a Canadian agronomist and politician. He served as the 15th premier of Quebec briefly in 1936, and again from 1939 to 1944. He served as leader of the Parti Libéral du Qu ...
, who sought to co-operate with the federal government.
Death
Lapointe died in office in 1941, in the midst of the war. King decided to appoint the reluctant Quebec leading lawyer
Louis St. Laurent to the cabinet as the new minister of justice.
Lapointe's son,
Hugues Lapointe
Hugues Lapointe (March 3, 1911 – November 13, 1982) was a Canadian lawyer, Member of Parliament and Lieutenant Governor of Quebec from 1966 to 1978.
Life and career
Born in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, the son of the Canadian Member o ...
, served as a
member of parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
from 1940 to 1957 and
lieutenant governor of Quebec
The lieutenant governor of Quebec (; French (masculine): ''Lieutenant-gouverneur du Québec'', or (feminine): ''Lieutenante-gouverneure du Québec'') is the viceregal representative in Quebec of the , who operates distinctly within the province ...
from 1966 to 1978.
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+
Archives
There is an Ernest Lapointe
fonds
In archival science, a fonds is a group of documents that share the same origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization. An example of a fonds could be the writings of a poe ...
at
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is t ...
.
Electoral record
See also
*
Conscription Crisis of 1944
The Conscription Crisis of 1944 was a political and military crisis following the introduction of forced military service for men in Canada during World War II. It was similar to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but not as politically damaging.
B ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
Biography from Library and Archives Canada
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lapointe, Ernest
1876 births
1941 deaths
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Laurier Liberals
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec
Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada
Lawyers in Quebec
Quebec lieutenants
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Canadian members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Université Laval alumni