Louis Robichaud

Infobox_President
name = Louis Joseph Robichaud


caption = Hon. Louis Joseph Robichaud PC CC QC BA LL.D
order = 25th Premier of New Brunswick
term_start = July 12, 1960
term_end = November 11, 1970
predecessor = Hugh John Flemming
successor = Richard Hatfield
birth_date = birth date|1925|10|21|mf=y
birth_place = St-Antoine, New Brunswick
death_date = death date and age |2005|01|06|1925|10|21
death_place = Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, New Brunswick
party = Liberal Party of New Brunswick
spouse = Jacqueline Robichaud
religion = Roman Catholic|

Louis Joseph Robichaud, PC , CC , QC, (October 21, 1925 - January 6, 2005), popularly known as "Little Louis" or "P'tit-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 the 1970 election.

. “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."

A desk made for Robichaud by the Saint John Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company and given to him in 1966, which he used during his last years as premier and which was used by his successor Richard Hatfield was returned to the Premier's Office by Shawn Graham in 2006. [Mary Moszynski, "LJR's desk returns to premier's office: New N.B. premier Shawn Graham moves historic piece of furniture back to "its rightful place", Times & Transcript. Page A1, October 11, 2006.]

He was instrumental in the creation of the Université de Moncton in 1963, while 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 Saint-Antoine, New Brunswick. The cancer had been discovered only a few weeks before his death.

ources

Further reading

Della M.M. Stanley, "Louis Robichaud: A Decade of Power", Halifax: Nimbus, 1984.

External links

* [http://www.gnb.ca/legis/publications/tradition/premiers/robichaudl-e.asp Province of New Brunswick biography]
* [http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/key/bio.asp?lang=E&query=378&s=M Federal Political Exeprience - Senate of Canada]
* [http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-74-519/people/robichaud/ CBC Digital Archives - The 'Other Revolution': Louis Robichaud's New Brunswick]