Maurice Duplessis

Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis QC (French pronunciation: ​[dyplɛsi]; April 20, 1890 – September 7, 1959), byname "Le Chef" ("The Boss"),[lower-alpha 1] was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 16th premier of Quebec. A conservative, nationalist, populist, anti-communist, anti-unionist and fervent Catholic, Duplessis and his party, the Union Nationale, dominated provincial politics from the 1930s to the 1950s. He is the longest-serving premier of Quebec since Confederation by cumulative time of service, having led the province for 18 years.[1]

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Maurice Duplessis QC
Maurice Duplessis, in 1947.
16th Premier of Quebec
In office August 30, 1944 – September 7, 1959
Monarchs	George VI Elizabeth II
Lieutenant Governor	Eugène Fiset Gaspard Fauteux Onésime Gagnon
Preceded by	Adélard Godbout
Succeeded by	Paul Sauvé
In office August 26, 1936 – November 8, 1939
Monarchs	Edward VIII George VI
Lieutenant Governor	Ésioff-Léon Patenaude
Preceded by	Adélard Godbout
Succeeded by	Adélard Godbout
Attorney General of Quebec
In office August 30, 1944 – September 7, 1959
Preceded by	Léon Casgrain
Succeeded by	Antoine Rivard
In office August 26, 1936 – November 8, 1939
Preceded by	Charles-Auguste Bertrand
Succeeded by	Wilfrid Girouard
Minister of Roads of Quebec
In office July 7, 1938 – November 30, 1938
Preceded by	François Leduc
Succeeded by	Anatole Carignan
Minister of Lands and Forests of Quebec
In office February 23, 1937 – July 27, 1938
Preceded by	Oscar Drouin
Succeeded by	John Samuel Bourque
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec for Trois-Rivières
In office May 16, 1927 – September 7, 1959
Preceded by	Louis-Philippe Mercier
Succeeded by	Yves Gabias
Leader of the Official Opposition of Quebec
In office November 8, 1939 – August 30, 1944
Preceded by	Télesphore-Damien Bouchard
Succeeded by	Adélard Godbout
In office November 7, 1932 – August 26, 1936
Preceded by	Charles Ernest Gault
Succeeded by	Télesphore-Damien Bouchard
70th President of the Bar of Quebec, Bar of Trois-Rivières [fr]
In office 1937–1938
Preceded by	Lucien Moraud
Succeeded by	Paul Lacoste [fr]
Personal details
Born	Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis (baptized Joseph Maurice Stanislas Le Noblet Duplessis) (1890-04-20)April 20, 1890 Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada
Died	September 7, 1959(1959-09-07) (aged 69) Schefferville, Quebec, Canada
Resting place	Saint-Louis Cemetery [fr], Trois-Rivières
Political party	Union Nationale
Other political affiliations	Conservative Party of Quebec (pre 1936)
Alma mater	Université Laval de Montréal
Profession	Lawyer
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This article is part of a series about Maurice Duplessis
Family Law career Pre-premiership politics (1923-1935) Conservative Party of Quebec 1923 campaign 1927 election 1931 election 1935 election First premiership (1936-1939) 1936 election Union Nationale (Action libérale nationale) Great Depression in Canada Padlock Law (Switzman v Elbling) 1939 election (opposition to conscription) Return to the Official Opposition Second premiership (1944-1959) Politics Elections (1944, 1948, 1952, 1956) Flag of Quebec Fight for provincial autonomy (Tremblay Commission) Censorship Natural gas scandal [fr] (Salvas Commission [fr]) Harassment of Jehovah's Witnesses (R v Boucher, Roncarelli v Duplessis) Economy Post-World War II economic expansion Baby boom Labour strikes (Montreal Cottons, Asbestos, Louiseville [fr], Murdochville) Investments (Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, Office de l'électrification rurale [fr], St. Lawrence Seaway, Manicouagan, Autoroutes of Quebec) Legacy and cultural references Grande Noirceur Opposition press (Le Devoir (The Negro-King theory [fr]), Cité Libre) Charbonneau et le Chef [fr] Duplessis Orphans Duplessis (TV series) Toponyms (autoroute, provincial riding, Boulevard Maurice-Duplessis [fr])
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Son of Nérée Duplessis, a lawyer who served as a Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Maurice studied law in Montreal and became a member of the Bar of Quebec in 1913. He then returned to his home town of Trois-Rivières to practice law, where he founded a successful consultancy. Duplessis narrowly lost the campaign for the Trois-Rivières seat in the 1923 election, but managed to get elected in 1927 as a Conservative MLA. His rhetorical skills helped him become the leader of the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly in 1933 in the place of Camillien Houde. As opposition leader, he agreed to a coalition with Paul Gouin's Action libérale nationale (ALN), which they called the Union Nationale. It lost in 1935 but gained a majority the following year as Gouin retired from politics and Duplessis took over the leadership, thus breaking almost 40 years of uninterrupted rule by the Quebec Liberal Party. Le Chef, in addition to his premiership duties, assigned himself the role of Attorney General and briefly held other ministerial posts as well.

The first three years in government were difficult for Duplessis as the government struggled to respond to the ongoing hardships of the Great Depression. That term saw the introduction of several key welfare policies (such as the universal minimum wage and old-age pensions), but the effort to strengthen his rule by calling a snap election in 1939 failed as his campaigning on the issue of World War II backfired and his government left the economy in a poor state. However, the Conscription Crisis of 1944 propelled him back to power in that year's election, which Le Chef would exercise until his death. As was the general trend of the time, he presided over a period of robust economic growth due to the rising demand in resources, which the province used to develop Côte-Nord and rural areas. Duplessis was a strong proponent of economic liberalism and implemented pro-business policies by keeping taxes low, refraining from regulation and adopting pro-employer labour policies, in particular by cracking down on trade unions. Le Chef usually met the federal government's initiatives with strong resistance due to his convictions on provincial autonomy. In the social domain, Duplessis maintained and protected the traditional role of the Catholic Church in Quebec's society, notably in healthcare and education. Le Chef was ruthless to the perceived enemies of the Church or of the Catholic nature of the province, such as Jehovah's Witnesses whom he harassed. Communists were persecuted under the Padlock Law, which he authored in 1937.

Duplessis's legacy remains controversial more than 60 years after his death. Compared to the Anglophones, the French Canadians remained worse off in the province where they constituted a majority just as his government was courting Anglophone and out-of-province businessmen to invest. This clientelist relationship with the business spheres often morphed into outright corruption. Le Chef's authoritarian inclinations, his all-powerful electoral machine, staunch conservatism, a cozy relationship with the Catholic Church, the mistreatment of Duplessis Orphans and the apparent backwardness of his model of development were also subject of criticism. Thus his critics labelled the period the Grande Noirceur (Great Darkness), which stuck in Quebec's society in a large degree thanks to the efforts of those who led the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. This was also the initial general opinion of historians and intellectuals, but since the 1990s, academics have revisited Duplessism and concluded that this assessment required nuancing and placement in the contemporary perspective and, in some cases, advocated outright rejection of that label.