Laurier, Wilfrid, Sir, 1841-1919 : First Francophone Prime Minister of Canada (1896-1911)
Henry-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier was born in Saint-Lin, Canada East (Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Quebec) on 20 November 1841. He attended English and French schools, studied law at McGill University, and practiced in Montreal and Arthabaska, Quebec.
As a young man, Laurier belonged to the radical Parti rouge, joined l'Institut canadien and edited the newspaper 'Le Défricheur'. He held local offices and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Quebec for the riding of Drummond-Arthabaska in 1871, after which he co-founded the moderate Parti national.
Laurier was elected to parliament as a Liberal in 1874 for the riding of Drummond-Arthabaska. Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie appointed him minister of inland revenue in 1877. He lost the customary by-election for new ministers, but was soon returned in the riding of Quebec East, which he represented until this death. Laurier served as secretary to party leader Edward Blake from 1878 until succeeding him in 1887.
After losing the 1891 general election, Laurier consolidated his leadership and public profile through a national party convention and speaking tour.
Laurier served as prime minister from 1896 to 1911. During these fifteen years, he oversaw Canada's westward expansion by creating the Yukon Territory in 1898, the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905, resolving the Alaskan boundary, building new transcontinental railways and encouraging immigration from Europe. He promoted urbanisation, industrialisation, tariff reform, provincial autonomy and linguistic and cultural dualism between the French and English communities. Though an Anglophile, Laurier increased Canada's autonomy from Britain. He sent a military force to the South African War in 1899 and founded Canada's navy two years later.
Laurier supported Canada's participation in the First World War, but opposed conscription. His refusal to join the Union Government in 1917 split the party and left him at the head of a small rump of 'Laurier Liberals' until his death.
Laurier was knighted in 1897. He married Zoé Lafontaine in 1868. He died of a stroke at Ottawa on 17 February 1919 and was buried at Ottawa's Notre Dame Cemetery.
Laurier consolidated and expanded the federal government's systematically racist relationship with Indigenous Peoples through colonial policies and actions. The government's sweeping, unilateral powers to erase and assimilate Indigenous Peoples caused tremendous ongoing trauma, displacement, disenfranchisement and exclusion.
Laurier used the federal government's armed suppression of the Métis Nation's resistance in 1869 and 1885, the hanging of Louis Riel and ongoing violence against the Métis as a pretext to attack Sir John A. Macdonald's contempt for French language rights. The attacks heightened Laurier's national profile and galvanised French-Canadian support for the Liberal Party. As Prime Minister, Laurier continued implementing Macdonald's policies that extinguished Métis land title through the Scrip System and fraud.
To secure western land for settlers, Laurier negotiated treaties 8, 9 and 10 with First Nations. The treaties forced First Nations onto reserves, deprived them of rights to natural resources, restricted their rights to buy and sell land, control funds, hunt, fish and farm. The treaties codified the government's desire to erase Indigenous Peoples' language and culture in Residential Schools, and through unilateral powers to ban traditional practices. Laurier's 1898 Elections Act deprived Indigenous Peoples of the right to vote in federal elections.
Laurier opened Canada to new immigrant groups, like the Eastern Europeans who settled on the prairies. At the same time, he enacted legislation that systemically excluded other immigrants based on race. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1900 doubled the existing Head Tax on people arriving from China. The tax was increased again in 1903. Five years later, Canada signed an agreement with Japan to severely limit immigration from that country, and moved to ban black immigrants under a 1911 Order-in-Council. More generally, Laurier's amendments to the Immigration Act in 1906, 1908 and 1910 prohibited many categories of immigrants, gave the government arbitrary deportation powers, and racially targeted immigrants of Asiatic origin with financial and travel restrictions.
The damage done by Laurier's policies and actions has been acknowledged in recent years. Courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, have ruled that Canada did not provide the Métis Nation with promised land rights, and that the government failed to incorporate negotiated items into treaties 8, 9 and 10. The federal government has subsequently reached settlements with some of the First Nations that signed the treaties.
The Government of Canada has officially apologised for actions taken by Laurier's government. The Prime Minister at the time apologised for the Head Tax on Chinese immigrants in 2006, Indian Residential Schools in 2008 and 2017, and for the Komogata Maru incident in 2016, which reflected Laurier's 1908 Immigration Act.
