Edmund James Flynn

Edmund James Flynn

Edmund James Flynn (born November 16, 1847 in Percé , Québec , † June 7, 1927 in Québec ) was a Canadian politician , legal scholar and judge . From 1877 to 1904 he was intermittently a member of the National Assembly of Québec , from 1896 as chairman of the Parti conservateur du Québec . From May 11, 1896 to May 24, 1897, he ruled the province of Québec as Prime Minister.

biography

Flynn, the son of a fisherman of Irish descent, graduated from the Séminaire de Québec . He studied law at the Université Laval and received 1873 admission as a lawyer . The following year he settled in the provincial capital Québec , but remained connected to his home region of Gaspésie . In addition to his work as a lawyer, Flynn was also a lecturer in Roman law at Laval University until his death . In 1878 he earned his doctorate, from 1891 he was a member of the university council.

As a candidate for the Parti libéral du Québec , Flynn ran for the election of the National Assembly of Québec in 1878 and was elected in the constituency of Gaspé. In October 1879 he switched to the Conservatives and brought down the liberal government of Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière together with four other MPs . Two days later the new Prime Minister Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau accepted Flynn into the provincial government and made him Commissioner for the Crown Lands . He held this office until July 1882, as Chapleau's successor Joseph-Alfred Mousseau did not consider him.

In the administration of John Jones Ross , Flynn was Minister for Railways from February 1884 to July 1886 and Deputy Minister of Justice from May 1885 to February 1887. In June 1890 he was voted out of office and a year later he ran unsuccessfully in the general election in 1891 . In the cabinet of Charles-Eugène Boucher de Boucherville (and later also under his successor Louis-Olivier Taillon ) Flynn was again commissioner for crown lands from December 1891. In March 1892 he succeeded in re-entering the provincial parliament, this time for the Matane constituency. Prime Minister Taillon resigned on May 11, 1896 to become Minister of Post at the federal level. Flynn was his successor and took over the party leadership; in addition, he also served as Minister for State Building Projects. He stayed in office for just under a year, until May 24, 1897, when the Parti conservateur suffered a significant defeat.

Flynn was the last prime minister from his party, as they could never be in government again later. He remained a member of parliament until November 1904 (from 1900 in the Nicolet constituency) and opposition leader. Then he turned back to his teaching activities at the Université Laval, which he practiced until his death. From 1915 to 1921 he served as dean of the law faculty and member of the university's administrative board, and from 1914 also as a judge.

Web links

• Edmund James Flynn . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Biography on the Québec National Assembly website (French)