Louis Robichaud
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Missing image Louisrobichaud1960s.jpg Image:louisrobichaud1960s.jpg | ||
| Rank: | 25th | |
| Term of Office: | July 12, 1960 - November 11, 1970 | |
| Predecessor: | Hugh John Flemming | |
| Successor: | Richard Hatfield | |
| Date of Birth: | October 21, 1925 | |
| Place of Birth: | St-Antoine, New Brunswick | |
| Date of Death: | January 6, 2005 | |
| Place of Death: | Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, New Brunswick | |
| Spouse: | Jacqueline Robichaud | |
| Profession: | Lawyer | |
| Political Party: | Liberal | |
Louis Joseph Robichaud (October 21, 1925 - January 6, 2005), popularly known as "Little Louis" (due both for his short height and his sharing a name with "Uncle Louis" St. Laurent), was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as Premier of New Brunswick from 1960 to 1970. Elected to the New Brunswick legislature in 1952, he became provincial Liberal leader in 1958 and led his party to victory in 1960, 1963 and 1967 before its defeat by Richard Hatfield's Conservatives in 1970.
The first Acadian premier of New Brunswick since Peter J. Veniot and the first to win an election, Robichaud modernized the province's hospitals and public schools and introduced a wide range of social reforms. The Liberals also passed an act in 1969 making New Brunswick officially bilingual. “Language rights," he said when he introduced the legislation, "are more than legal rights. They are precious cultural rights, going deep into the revered past and touching the historic traditions of all our people.”
Robichaud also restructured the municipal tax regime, ending the ability of business of playing one municipality against another in order to extract the lowest tax rates. He also expanded the government and sought to ensure that the quality of health care, education and social services was the same across the province -- a programme he called equal opportunity, which is still a political buzz phrase in New Brunswick. "When I first realized that there was absolutely no equal opportunity, no equality, in New Brunswick," he recalled in the 1980s, "well, I had to come to the conclusion that something had to be done immediately."
He was instrumental in the creation of the Université de Moncton in 1963.
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In 1969, a high school was named in his honour in Shediac, New Brunswick.
In 1971, upon resigning from the legislature, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada and Canadian chairman of the International Joint Commission, a post he held until being called to the Senate of Canada on December 21, 1973. He sat in the Senate until his mandatory retirement from the Upper House on October 21, 2000 upon reaching his seventy-fifth birthday.
He was a resident of New Brunswick at the time of his death of cancer at the Hôpital Stella-Maris-de-Kent in Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, near his birth place of St-Antoine, New Brunswick. The cancer had been discovered only a few weeks before his death.
External links
- CBC Obituary (http://nb.cbc.ca/regionalnews/caches/nb_robichaud_obit1.html)
- Province of New Brunswick biography (http://www.gnb.ca/legis/publications/tradition/premiers/robichaudl-e.asp)
- Federal Political Exeprience - Senate of Canada (http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/key/bio.asp?lang=E&query=378&s=M)
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Preceded by: Hugh John Flemming 1952-1960 |
Premier of New Brunswick 1960-1970 |
Succeeded by: Richard Bennett Hatfield 1970-1987 |