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Camillien Houde (August 13, 1889 - September 11, 1958) was a Quebec politician and long-time mayor of Montreal, Quebec, Canada .
Political career
Houde was born in Montreal on 13 August 1889 and died there 11 September 1958. He was nicknamed "l'imprevisible" -- the unpredictable. He was the son of Azade Houde and Josephine Frenette. He is descended from the son of the first Houde ancestor, Louis Houde, who came from Manou (La Loupe)France to Quebec in 1647. Louis Houde's son was Louis H who married Marie Lemay in 1685.
He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec as a member of the Conservative Party in the 1923 election. He was defeated in the 1927 election, but re-elected in a by-election on October 24, 1928. He was elected leader of the Conservative Party on July 10, 1929 and led the party to defeat in the 1931 election, and failed to win a seat. He resigned as Conservative leader on September 19, 1932.
He moved to federal politics and lost in a bid for election as a Conservative candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in a 1938 by-election in the Montreal riding of St. Mary. He ran again in St. Mary, this time as an independent candidate, in the 1945 federal election, but was again defeated. He won a seat as an independent candidate in the riding of Papineau in the 1949 federal election by less than 100 votes. He did not run for re-election in the 1953 election.
Houde became a figure of ridicule in parts of English Canada because of his conduct in opposition to conscription. During the 1949 federal election, the Toronto Star, which openly supported the Liberal Party, attempted to link the unpopular Houde with George Drew, then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada even though Houde was running as an independent candidate against an official Progressive Conservative candidate. The Star accused Drew of making a secret pact with Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis to appoint Houde to the Cabinet as Drew's Quebec lieutenant should the Tories win the election. The newspaper's campaign reached its culmination on election day with a banner front page headline reading:
- KEEP CANADA BRITISH
- DESTROY DREW'S HOUDE
- GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
(in later editions, the last line was changed to "VOTE ST. LAURENT").*
Concurrent to his career in provincial and federal politics, Houde was mayor of Montreal from 1928 to 1932, from 1934 to 1936, from 1938 to 1940, and from 1944 to 1954. In its February 20, 1939 issue, Time Magazine quoted from Mayor Camillien Houde's speech to a YMCA audience on the subject of War in Europe:
- If war comes, and if Italy is on one side and England on the other, the sympathy of the French-Canadians in Quebec will be on the side of Italy. Remember that the great majority of French-Canadians are Roman Catholics, and that the Pope is in Rome. We French-Canadians are Normans, not Latins, but we have become Latinized over a long period of years. The French-Canadians are Fascists by blood, but not by name. The Latins have always been in favour of dictators.
Mayor Houde was a reform-minded mayor in the areas of patronage, unemployment, and organized crime. He was also responsible for some of the major public park improvements in Montreal including the park on Mont Royal in the centre of Montreal with its man-made lake and park facilties. One of the roads leading up to the top of the mountain is named after him.
When World War II came, Houde then campaigned against conscription. On August 2, 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the National Registration Act. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition. After being found guilty, he was confined in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario and Gagetown, New Brunswick until 1944. Upon his release on August 18, 1944, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 50,000 Montrealers, and won back his job as Montreal mayor in 1944's civic election.
On his death in 1958, Camillien Houde was interred in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal, Quebec in an Italian marble replica of Napoleon's tomb.
Elections as party leader
Quebec: He lost the 1931 election.
Quotes
- "Your majesty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and Madame Houde here thanks you from her bottom too." Speaking to King George VI in 1939.
- "You know, some of that cheering is for you too." Commenting on cheering crowds to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during their 1939 visit to Montreal.
See also
- Politics of Quebec
- List of Quebec general elections
- List of Quebec leaders of the Opposition
- Timeline of Quebec history
- Conscription Crisis of 1944
External links
- National Assembly biography (in French)
1889 births | 1958 deaths | Independent MPs in the Canadian House of Commons | Montreal mayors | Quebec MNAs | Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Quebec
"Camillien Houde"