Various

A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography


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éclat to his statesmanship. He would see Canada a unit while aiding the mother lands in Europe by force of arms, and thus uphold the prestige of the British Empire. And the various offices Sir Lomer Gouin has held from the day he entered public life in 1891, indicate the strenuous part he has played as a public-spirited Canadian. In 1891, he was President of the National Club in Montreal, which was virtually “the Executive of the Liberal Party” in the Montreal district. That year he was defeated in his first election contest. Six years after he was elected representative for the St. James Electoral Division of Montreal, and thereafter has been member for his native County of Portneuf. He has continued to be a Member of the Council of Public Instruction since 1898; became President of the American Fish and Game Protection Association in 1910; was Chairman of the Ottawa Inter-provincial Conference in 1906, and afterwards a delegate to a like Conference in 1910. As from one “learned in the law,” his edition of the Municipal Code is a standard work; while no one has so well at his command the details of parliamentary law-and-order as he has, as leader of the House of Assembly. The record of his regime is concisely given in a neat little volume published in 1916, under the title of “Le Gouvernment Gouin et Son Oeuvre.” Another volume referring to the federal subsidies in favor of the provinces was published in 1903, giving the amplified record of an address delivered by Sir Lomer under the heading of “The Actual Question.” These volumes, together with the reports of his speeches from time to time, indicate how Sir Lomer Gouin has ever had in mind the public interest—seeing to the improving of the conditions in his native province, even to the widening out of its area as in the case of the annexation of the District of Ungava, building government works, and highways, and bridges, and never forgetting to urge it to keep pace with its sister provinces in the federacy which includes them all within the Dominion of Canada. In seeing to the advancement of the province he has in charge as premier, he has made fame for himself as a loyal statesman and dignified scholar, duly honored by the King and his country’s seats of learning. He was married to Miss Alice Amos, his second wife, in 1911. By his first wife he has had two sons—Leon, who is practising law in Montreal; and Paul, who is a lieutenant on active service.

      S. R. PARSONS

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