CanadaWho was Louis St. Laurent?
Louis Stephen St. Laurent was born in Compton, Quebec, in 1882 to a French-Canadian father and an Irish-Canadian mother, and became one of Quebec's leading lawyers. Mackenzie King recruited him in 1941 as justice minister and Quebec lieutenant. He became external affairs minister in 1946 and succeeded King as Liberal leader and prime minister in 1948. Nicknamed 'Uncle Louis', he won large majorities in 1949 and 1953 before losing to John Diefenbaker in 1957. He died in 1973.
Political views
Was among the first responsible politicians to propose a North Atlantic alliance, and his government took Canada into NATO in 1949.
Source: biographi.caStressed the ideological gulf between the West and 'totalitarian communism' from 1947 onward, and committed troops, ships and aircraft to the UN force in Korea.
Source: biographi.caDeclined in 1949 to outlaw the Communist Party of Canada, saying it posed little threat and such a measure would be drastic.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIntroduced equalization payments to poorer provinces and the hospital insurance program, an early form of medicare.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgEnded appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, making the Supreme Court of Canada the final court of appeal.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPassed the 1952 Immigration Act, which kept broad powers to prohibit immigrants by nationality, ethnicity or 'probable inability to assimilate'.
Source: pier21.caBuilt the St. Lawrence Seaway jointly with the United States and backed the Trans-Canada Highway and a transcontinental gas pipeline.
Source: biographi.ca
Legacy
Admirers remember St. Laurent as the steady leader of a prosperous postwar decade who consolidated the welfare state, paid down war debts, brought Newfoundland into Canada and made the country an active middle power in NATO and the United Nations. His government's record on equalization is often credited with strengthening the federation. Critics, then and since, argued that two decades of Liberal rule had made the government arrogant, a charge crystallised when his ministers forced the 1956 pipeline bill through the Commons with closure. Western Canadians felt neglected. His government also authorized the 1953 High Arctic relocation, which forcibly moved 92 Inuit to what is now Nunavut, and the 1952 Immigration Act retained discriminatory selection powers that were only dismantled in the 1960s.