Wilfrid Laurier

Prime minister of Canada (1896-1911)

• Born: November 20, 1841
• Birthplace: Saint Lin, Canada East (now Quebec, Canada)
• Died: February 17, 1919
• Place of death: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

By transforming Canadian Liberalism and shifting its base to Quebec, Laurier made possible the subsequent dominance of federal politics by the Liberal Party. As the first French-Canadian to become prime minister of Canada, he presided over an era of expansion, general prosperity, and increasing Canadian self-awareness.

Early Life

Wilfrid Laurier (lohr-yay) was born in St. Lin, Quebec, a small village north of Montreal. His father, Carolus Laurier, a farmer and land surveyor, was a seventh-generation descendant from one of the first French settlers of Montreal, and his mother, Marcelle Martineau, came from another old French-Canadian family. Laurier, an only son, received an unusual education, proceeding from the local Roman Catholic parish school to a Scottish Presbyterian school that opened the door to the English language and English culture. His love of reading developed early and lasted throughout his life. At age twelve, he went to college at L’Assomption for seven years and then studied law for three years at McGill University. With law degree in hand, he began to practice in Montreal in 1864 in the office of Rodolphe Laflamme, a founder of the Institut Canadien, home of the advanced liberal and anticlerical views sponsored in politics by the liberal party Les Rouges. Laurier’s family revered the radical Louis Joseph Papineau, leader of the Patriotes, who had rebelled against Great Britain in 1837, and in school young Laurier’s ideas had alarmed his clerical teachers, so it was not surprising that he now joined the Institut and Les Rouges.

Bronchial problems impelled Laurier to move in 1866 to the village of L’Avenir and then to Arthabaska, where he edited the liberal paper Le Défricheur. He followed the Rouges line, opposing the project for Canadian Confederation then being pushed by the Conservative (Bleu) leader, George Étienne Cartier, a fervent supporter of the Catholic Church and a friend to railroads and big business. Cartier’s political alliance with Sir John Alexander Macdonald, the English Canadian Conservative leader, seemed to threaten the future of Liberalism. Moreover, in the new and larger Dominion of Canada, the French would become a still smaller minority. Laurier, however, after a token fight, could see no point in resisting the inevitable and soon accepted confederation when it became a reality on July 1, 1867.

A picture of Laurier in 1869 shows a handsome youth, tall and slender, with wavy reddish-brown hair, a prominent nose, and captivating eyes. He never exercised, seldom even taking a long walk, but he retained his erect carriage and trim figure into old age. In his youth, he worried much over his health, but, when finally assured that he did not have tuberculosis in 1868, he married Zoë, the daughter of G. N. R. Lafontaine of Montreal. The union, though childless, was happy and reached its golden anniversary. Laurier was never rich and for many years was quite poor, but he lived simply, returning every summer to his much-loved Arthabaska, and only in his later years enjoying a comfortable upper-middle-class home in Ottawa.

Life’s Work

Laurier entered the Quebec legislature in 1871 as a Liberal member for Drummond-Arthabaska, despite clerical opposition. Not especially interested in local questions, he was glad to move up to the Canadian House of Commons in the Liberal landslide of 1874. His intelligence and personality, together with his skill as an orator in both French and English, soon made him the leading Quebec Liberal on the federal stage.

His real rise dates from his celebrated speech at Quebec City in 1877 (published that year as A Lecture on Political Liberalism). By distinguishing political Liberalism from Catholic Liberalism, a movement within the Church that the hierarchy had condemned, Laurier sought to put any taint of Les Rouges behind him and to identify his party with moderate British Liberalism. Unless he could distance his party from the anticlerical revolutionary tradition of France, Canadian Liberals would never become acceptable in Quebec. Although the Catholic bishops were not at once appeased, the new Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) accepted the distinction, and Laurier’s liberalism gradually became respectable in Quebec. The basis for a great political change was set.

In 1877, Laurier’s increasing importance led Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie to appoint him minister of inland revenue, but the job did not last long, for the Liberals and Laurier were swept to defeat in 1878. Laurier quickly found himself a new seat for Quebec East, which would sustain him in Parliament until his death more than forty years later. In 1880, Edward Blake took over as Liberal leader with Laurier as his chief lieutenant, and when Blake retired in 1887 after two electoral defeats, he named Laurier to succeed him. Despite his ambition, Laurier was hesitant because of his health and finances and also because some English Canadian Liberals resented his outspoken support for Louis Riel, leader of the rebellion in Saskatchewan in 1885. The execution of Riel aroused Laurier’s deepest French instincts, and his emotional speeches alienated English Canada. Yet, in the absence of any outstanding English Canadian Liberal alternative, Blake prevailed and Laurier became Liberal leader.

Laurier’s first bid for power in 1891 failed on the Liberal proposal for free trade with the United States, sometimes called “continentalism.” Old Prime Minister Macdonald, fighting his last fight, successfully portrayed the Liberal plan as an entering wedge for annexation to the United States while playing up Canadian loyalty to the old flag of Great Britain. Laurier’s only consolation in defeat was continued Liberal progress in Quebec.

The Liberals now dropped the controversial issue of closer ties with the United States and watched the Conservatives flounder in the years after Macdonald’s death. In 1896, the major issue was an act of the Manitoba legislature closing French Catholic schools. The Conservative government saw this as unconstitutional. Laurier stood to gain by picking up supporters of provincial rights; on the other hand, Quebec might resent his disappointing French Catholics in Manitoba. Gambling that he himself, as a French Canadian, would be the issue in Quebec, he catered to the foes of Catholic schools as quietly as possible by simply declaring his belief that confederation was based on provincial rights. The strategy worked: Quebec stood by him despite the fulminations of reactionary bishops, and elsewhere provincial rightists rounded out his victory on June 27, 1896.

Prime minister at last, Laurier was now fifty-four. The hair that had disappeared from the crown of his head was now compensated by an impressive mane, soon to be completely white, flowing out to back and sides. His natural elegance and fastidious dress gave him an increasingly dignified and stately appearance as he grew older. He stood out in any crowd, even at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. As great an actor as the stage itself could offer, he never failed to convince journalists, back-benchers, and constituents of his personal concern. Always the great gentleman, his warmth, courtesy, and charm were legendary, but for all of his cordiality, he was reserved and formal, and he had very few close friends.

As a politician he was essentially pragmatic in the Macdonald tradition. Admittedly lazy, he disliked detail and sometimes failed to act in time to prevent political problems. Although much given to compromise, he often displayed an iron will and usually mastered his cabinet. His first cabinets were the ablest; in time some of the stronger personalities such as Clifford Sifton and Israel Tarte were replaced by more obliging colleagues. Like many another leader long in power, Laurier heard only what he wanted to hear. In his best days, however, he accomplished much, winning over many adversaries with his “silver tongue” and “sunny ways.” For example, he quickly compromised with Manitoba on the school question, recognizing provincial authority but winning concessions for after-hours religious teaching and for instruction in the French language, where numbers warranted.

The Tariff of 1897 revealed Laurier’s practical side. Despite years of Liberal talk about lower duties, there were few reductions in the general tariff. It did provide, however, a preferential treatment for Great Britain that greatly stimulated British imports. Such a move not only erased earlier suspicions of Liberal drift toward the United States but also won support from Canadians still strongly attached to the imperial tie. Laurier, however, at the Colonial Conference of 1897 (which met during the Diamond Jubilee), resisted calls for imperial unity. Like Macdonald ten years earlier, he envisioned what the British Commonwealth later became: a galaxy of free states freely associated. In any case, his assurances of Canadian loyalty were warmly received and Laurier himself was knighted.

French and English Canadians divided over the question of assistance to Great Britain during the Boer War (1899-1902). Laurier’s compromise was to pay transport costs for volunteers who would then be maintained at British expense. This minimal action, insufficient for Ontario “imperialists,” aroused opposition in Quebec (led by Henri Bourassa), but most Québécois, sensing that the Conservatives would be decidedly pro-British, stayed with Laurier, who rewarded their trust by steadily resisting over the next decade all British appeals for financial help in the naval race with Germany. He also signaled Canada’s growing independence by setting up the Department of External Affairs in 1909.

The early 1900’s were the great years of expansion and prosperity. An energetic program to recruit immigrants from overseas brought in millions of immigrants until World War I intervened. From 1901 to 1911, Canada’s population showed a net increase of 1,832,212. The majority went to the West, producing an agricultural boom and making possible the creation of two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, in 1905. Other immigrants went to the cities and became vital cogs in urban and industrial development. As elsewhere in the first phase of industrialization, labor was often exploited. The Laurier government made some efforts to help, setting up a Department of Labour and producing schemes for conciliation and arbitration, but no real protection for unions was forthcoming. Some believed that Laurier was more interested in providing a cheap labor force for industry and railroad construction.

Railway building was especially close to Laurier’s heart. In 1903, he unveiled plans for a new transcontinental line to be built from Winnipeg to the Pacific by the privately owned Grand Trunk Pacific, and from Monckton, New Brunswick, to Winnipeg, by the government, which would then lease its track to Grand Trunk. Despite other sweeteners in the deal, the enterprise was popular at first, but cost overruns and rumors of graft began to dim its luster. Competition, not only from the existing Canadian Pacific but also from a third line, the Canadian Northern, undermined it further. It was all too much, and later both lines had to be taken over by the Canadian government a costly legacy of Laurier’s optimism.

Meanwhile, Laurier’s efforts to avoid racial schism were running into trouble. In 1905, there was a great row when he tried to procure for Catholics in the new provinces the same rights that they had obtained in Manitoba. The English won, provoking Bourassa and the Quebec nationalists and losing a good chance to create the kind of cultural dualism Laurier had always wanted. Then in 1910, when he decided to build a small Canadian navy as a way of pacifying Canadian “imperialists” intent on aiding Great Britain, he alienated not only Bourassa but also enough Québécois voters to ensure his defeat in the election of 1911.

The main reason for Laurier’s defeat, however, was the revival of the dream of reciprocal trade with the United States, this time on American initiative. Laurier, whose tour of the West in 1910 had revealed strong antitariff sentiment among farmers, accepted eagerly, but opposition arose among worried manufacturers and lovers of the Empire who feared that East-West ties would be replaced by a North-South connection. As in 1891, prophecies of an American annexation, seemingly confirmed by speeches and newspapers in the United States, weakened Laurier considerably. In the election, Ontarians deserted in droves, and that, coupled with Bourassa’s inroads in Quebec, put an end to Laurier’s rule.

Although nearly seventy, Laurier remained as leader of the Liberal Party until his death. A brief dose of Conservative imperialism, highlighted by an effort to give Great Britain money for three battleships, soon rallied all Quebec behind Laurier once again. While he supported Canada’s entrance into the war in 1914 and even encouraged voluntary enlistments in the struggle to save civilization, Laurier opposed conscription. In part, it went against his concept of civil liberty, but his main fear was that it would wreck the fragile French-English unity that he had always worked to preserve. Abandoned by most English-speaking Liberals, he fought a losing battle in the bitter election of 1917. He was reviled as a traitor and his political base was for the most part reduced to Quebec, although he did win 40 percent of the vote nationally and won twenty seats outside Quebec. It was a sad end to his career. Death soon followed, on February 17, 1919, and Canada quickly awoke to the realization that one of its giants was gone.

Significance

Laurier had the good fortune to preside over an age of expansion, confidence, and optimism, epitomized by his own prophecy that, just as the nineteenth century had been the time of the United States, so the twentieth century would belong to Canada. As the plains filled, immigration swelled, and industry grew, it was easy to believe in this prophecy and to ignore the pockets of discontent. The prevailing impression was of progress and promise, and Laurier’s reputation benefited accordingly. The man of silver tongue and sunny ways seemed perfectly matched with his hour.

Politically, he won for Quebec a dominant voice in one of the two great national parties, and that was essential to prevent the disintegration of Canada along ethnic lines. He also ensured that the Liberal Party, with its solid base in Quebec, would dominate federal politics for decades to come. Only in 1958 and 1984 has Quebec departed from its Liberal allegiance, a remarkable turnabout from the Macdonald era when Quebec regularly sent large Conservative majorities to the federal parliament. From 1896 to 1984, Liberals dominated in Ottawa three-fourths of the time. What Liberalism meant is, however, another question. Until the 1960’s, the Liberals, like Laurier himself, were not distinguished for their record on social reform. Laurier, and successors such as William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent, had many ties to big business and the railroads. Laurier opposed regulation of railroad rates, did not favor public ownership or collectivism in any form, and believed that reforms should be left to the opposition. While he was in part inhibited by constitutional provisions that left many subjects to the provinces, he was also influenced by the laissez-faire notions of British Liberalism. He showed inconsistency, however, in using government to promote new railroads and, contrary to campaign rhetoric, to protect Canadian industry.

Although Laurier has been celebrated for his dream of a unified Canadian nation, his real goal was the harmonious cooperation of the French and English communities. He opposed all appeals to racial and religious emotions, and his compromises were designed to hold Canada together in a period of radical change and cultural clash. Like all persons in the middle, he antagonized extremists on both sides, but had it not been for World War I and the conscription issue that divided the two peoples so seriously, his efforts might have been more durable. The fact that he never became a hero to Quebec nationalists or separatists then or later confirms his often-expressed devotion to Canada: “I love France which gave me life; I love England which gave me liberty; but the first place in my heart is for Canada, my home and native land.”

Bibliography

Clippingdale, Richard. Laurier: His Life and World. Toronto, Ont.: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1979. A fine introduction to Laurier. Handsomely and profusely illustrated, the book focuses on the years of Laurier’s premiership (1896-1911), successfully evoking the social and cultural atmosphere of the turn of the century. Unusually comprehensive and perceptive for a brief work. Includes a useful bibliographical essay.

Cook, Ramsay, and R. Craig Brown. A Nation Transformed: Canada, 1896-1921. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 1974. Part of the Canadian Centenary series, written by two first-class scholars. Much broader in scope than a mere biography, yet Laurier is covered extensively and his work is placed in perspective.

Dafoe, John W. Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics. 1922. Rev. ed. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 1964. Dafoe, a longtime Liberal editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, stoutly supported Laurier until the conscription crisis of 1917. Dafoe here briefly suggests that Laurier “had affinities with Machiavelli as well as with Sir Galahad.”

Neatby, H. Blair. Laurier and a Liberal Quebec: A Study in Political Management. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 1973. Originally a doctoral dissertation written in 1956 and published later. A scholarly monograph that helps explain Laurier’s methods and success, emphasizing the importance of Quebec as a bastion of liberalism.

Robertson, Barbara. Wilfrid Laurier: The Great Conciliator. Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, 1971. One volume in a series of brief lives with emphasis on character, anecdote, and social history. A good introduction to Laurier. Illustrated.

Schull, Joseph. Laurier: The First Canadian. Toronto, Ont.: Macmillan, 1965. The longest and most detailed biography, making use of source material and providing detail not published elsewhere. Still, as the title indicates, this is a hymn of praise.

Skelton, Oscar Douglas. Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. 2 vols. New York: Century, 1922. Rev. ed. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 1965. Originally published in two volumes, this is an “authorized” biography, written by a wholehearted admirer. The first work to be based on Laurier’s correspondence.

Stewart, Roderick. Wilfrid Laurier: A Pledge for Canada. Montreal, Que.: XYZ, 2002. Biography tracing Laurier’s life, including his tenure in Parliament and his prime ministry.