Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière

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Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière (1870)

Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière KCMG , PC (born December 5, 1829 in Épernay ( France ), †  November 16, 1908 in Québec ) was a Canadian politician . He was the fourth Prime Minister of the Province of Quebec and the first Protestant to hold this post. Lotbinière ruled from March 8, 1878 to October 31, 1879 and during this time he held the presidency of the Parti libéral du Québec . From 1867 to 1874 and from 1896 to 1900 he was a Liberal MP in the Canadian House of Commons. Eventually he served as Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia from 1900 to 1906 .

biography

Family background

The paternal branch of his parents (Joly was his father's last name, de Lotbinière his mother's) originally came from Switzerland and moved to France at the beginning of the 19th century . His father, a wealthy wine merchant, finally met his future wife (owner of a winery) in Montreal on one of his many trips and settled on her estate. The father's diverse interests, which were also related to photography , brought him in contact with the photography pioneer Louis Daguerre in Paris , from whom he purchased one of the first cameras and was personally instructed in their use by him.

Henri-Gustave was born as the eldest son in 1829; he added his mother's surname to that of his father in 1888. Originally belonging to the Huguenots , the parents converted to the Anglican denomination, which was thus passed on to their son.

Career

Joly de Lotbinière spent the years 1836 to 1849 in Paris to receive his education there and to complete a law degree. During this time he was under the strict supervision of his paternal grandmother and an aunt. Upon his return, he received in 1855 for admission as a lawyer . A year later he married Margaretta Josepha Gowen, with whom he would have six children. The father tied him into the management of the estate; However, after his son officially inherited the estate in 1860, he left Canada again due to the estrangement from his wife and moved to Paris, where he died in 1865.

Joly de Lotbinière made his political debut in 1861 when he moved into the lower house of the province of Canada for his home constituency Lotbinière. He took part in the actions against the formation of a Canadian confederation and gave a lengthy speech in 1865, which was published by the newspaper Le Pays . Joly de Lotbinière considered the federation plans to be entirely superfluous, fearing that the merger would lead to an emerging rivalry between the provinces, which were otherwise used to regulating their affairs locally, and he suspected that the new centralism would result in an underrepresentation of the French Canadians at the federal parliamentary level . Incidentally, even in the status quo , it would be possible to counter threats from outside through a defense alliance between Upper and Lower Canada . In the end, he was ready to adapt to the new developments that led to the founding of the Canadian state in 1867.

In that year's election, Joly de Lotbinière received a dual mandate for both the Québec National Assembly and the House of Commons in Ottawa . In the first he was represented until 1885, in the second he had to resign his mandate in 1874, since such double mandates were abolished in the same year and he therefore had to choose to belong to parliament. At the beginning of the province of Québec there was not yet a single Liberal Party. The Rouges , originally radical opponents of the Federation, formed a parliamentary group and elected Joly de Lotbinière as their group chairman. By the time he took office in 1878, the Parti libéral du Québec should finally have been formed.

As leader of the opposition, Joly de Lotbinière dealt almost exclusively with economic issues, especially with regard to the modernization of agriculture , questions of forestry and, a constantly topical issue in the first decades, the expansion of the railway network . The latter led to a conflict between Lieutenant Governor Luc Letellier de Saint-Just and the Conservative Prime Minister Charles-Eugène Boucher de Boucherville over the financial participation of neighboring communities, whereupon Saint-Just deposed the premier and Joly de Lotbinière on March 8, 1878 with the formation a new government. The following election brought an extremely close result: the Liberals won 32 and the Conservatives 33 seats, one of which (he was offered to be Speaker of the House of Commons) tended towards Joly de Lotbinière, and two seats for independent Conservatives.

The government work turned out to be correspondingly difficult, since the absence or even the transfer of a member to the conservatives could mean the end of the government. The fact that the Liberals were voted out of the lower house in 1878 made the situation even more difficult. The Conservatives now wanted to achieve the replacement of Saint-Just through an application at federal level, despite Joly de Lotbinière's personal commitment in London , he could no longer prevent this. Théodore Robitaille , a former Conservative member of the Federal Parliament, was appointed as his successor. The provincial government tried to consolidate the state budget by cutting spending and even proposed in August 1879 to abolish the Legislative Council , which the latter refused to approve. in October of the same year, five Liberal MPs finally converted to the Conservatives, placing the government in an untenable position. Since his request for a dissolution of the government was not granted, Joly de Lotbinière finally resigned on October 31, 1879. He was succeeded by Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau .

Joly de Lotbinière's dislike of the then moral state of politics, the defeat of the Liberals in 1881 and the desire of the Liberals for a more iron leader induced Joly de Lotbinière to hand over the leadership of the party to Honoré Mercier . After leaving parliament, he returned to his estate and forestry. He continued to follow the political events critically on a private level and viewed the growing role of the churches in society with great concern. In the summer of 1891, however, he was ready to accept the post of Minister of Agriculture and Colonization in the Mercier cabinet, which was thwarted by the Chaleur Bay scandal .

He turned down the offer made in 1894 to take over the party leadership again. Nevertheless, with the candidacy for the general election in 1896 for the constituency of Portneuf, the return to active politics took place. He became a member of Wilfrid Laurier's cabinet , where he was first auditor and then minister for domestic taxes in June 1897. After a rumor that he was going to be appointed lieutenant governor of a province (which he refused to do), he was appointed to this position on June 22, 1900, for the province of British Columbia .

The political instability of British Columbia (there were more loose groups than real parties there) required a strong role from the local lieutenant governor. During his six years there, Joly de Lotbinière refused to resign Prime Minister James Dunsmuir in October 1901 in order to avert a new election, dismissed the cabinet of Edward Gawler Prior in 1903 after a scandal in which several ministers were involved and appointed Richard McBride as his successor . After the end of his tenure, Joly de Lotbinière returned to Québec. His health had already started to deteriorate and he finally died on his estate in 1908 at the age of 79.

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personal data
SURNAME Joly de Lotbinière, Henri-Gustave
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Epernay
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1908
Place of death Quebec