Simon-Napoléon Parent

Simon-Napoléon Parent

Simon-Napoléon Parent (born September 12, 1855 in Beauport , † September 7, 1920 in Montreal ) was a Canadian politician . He was a member of the National Assembly of Québec from 1890 to 1905 . From October 3, 1900 to March 23, 1905, he ruled the province of Québec as Prime Minister and during this time he also chaired the Parti libéral du Québec until he had to resign due to internal power struggles. He also served as mayor of Québec from 1894 to 1906 .

biography

Parent came from a humble farming family and opened a grocery store in Québec after finishing school. In parallel to his professional activity, he completed a law degree at the Université Laval . In 1881 he was admitted as a lawyer . After Parent had been elected to the Québec City Council in 1890, he was also elected to the Québec National Assembly for the Saint-Sauveur constituency in the same year , with the support of Honoré Mercier and Wilfrid Laurier . In 1894 the city council elected Parent mayor. He rationalized the city administration, accelerated the construction of a new town hall and promoted the electrification of the tram.

Félix-Gabriel Marchand took Parent on May 26, 1897 in the provincial cabinet and made him Minister for Lands, Forestry and Fisheries. Parent, who retained the office of mayor, was charged with selling state-owned land to investors. In return, they set up forest operations, paper mills and power plants, which led to higher economic output and higher tax revenues. After Marchand's death on September 25, 1900, the Canadian Prime Minister Laurier had the task of appointing a successor. His choice fell on Parent, who was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Québec nine days later and took over the chairmanship of the Parti libéral du Québec .

Parents' party won an overwhelming election victory in December 1900, with the Liberals winning 67 out of 74 seats. However, tensions soon arose within the party. The party base accused Parent of running the province like a private company, mainly pursuing his own economic interests and paying too little attention to the concerns of the population. It was also criticized that he rarely stayed outside the provincial capital. The elections in October 1904 ended with a similarly clear result as four years earlier, but the liberal parliamentary group increasingly turned away from the head of government. On February 3, 1905, three influential ministers (including Lomer Gouin ) resigned from their offices, five days later 44 MPs called for Parents' resignation.

The Québec Bridge shortly after it collapsed on August 29, 1907

Finally, on March 23, 1905, Simon-Napoléon Parent gave in to pressure, stepping back in favor of Lomer Gouin, who remained Prime Minister of the Province of Québec until 1920. Parent remained in office as mayor of Quebec City until January 1906. As compensation, so to speak, he was appointed by Wilfrid Laurier as chairman of the influential Federal Railway Commission. The collapse of the Québec Bridge under construction on August 29, 1907, which killed 75 people, brought him back into the headlines as he was president of the bridge construction company responsible. The subsequent commission of inquiry absolved him of any guilt and held faulty calculations by the engineers responsible for the disaster. In 1911, Gouin resigned as president of the Railway Commission and instead took over the chairmanship of the Québec Water Commission.

Web links

• Simon-Napoléon Parent . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Biography on the Québec National Assembly website (French)