Simon-Napoléon Parent

Simon- Napoléon Parent ( born September 12, 1855 in Quebec City, † September 7, 1920 in Montreal) was a Canadian politician. He was from 1890 to 1905 deputy in the National Assembly of Quebec. Of 3 October 1900 to 23 March 1905, he ruled the province of Quebec as Prime Minister and had during this time is also the Chairman of the Parti libéral du Québec, until he was forced to resign due to internal party power struggles. In addition, he served from 1894 to 1906 as mayor of the city of Québec.

Biography

Parent came from a humble peasant family, and opened after his school days a grocery store in the city of Québec. Parallel to his professional activities, he studied law at the Université Laval. In 1881 he was admitted as a lawyer. After Parent was elected in 1890 in the City Council of Quebec, in the same year he also succeeded Elected to the electoral district of Saint- Sauveur in the National Assembly of Quebec, where he received support from Honoré Mercier and Wilfrid Laurier. 1894 was chosen by the city council Parent mayor. He rationalized the city administration, accelerated the construction of a new town hall and drove the electrification of the tram ahead.

Félix- Gabriel Marchand took Parent on May 26, 1897, provincial cabinet on and made him the Minister of lands, forestry and fisheries. Parent, who retained the office of mayor, had the task to sell state-owned land to investors. This built in return forestry operations, paper mills and power stations, which resulted in a stronger economic performance and higher tax revenues. After Marchand's death on 25 September 1900, the Canadian Prime Minister Laurier 's task was to choose a successor. His choice was to Parent, who was nine days later sworn in as the new head of government of Québec and took over the chairmanship of the Parti libéral du Québec.

Parents Party won in 1900 a landslide election victory, the Liberals won 67 of 74 seats. Soon, however, came within the party to tensions. The party base accused parent, he lead the province like a private company, mainly pursuing its own economic interests and would take too little consideration to the concerns of the population. It was also criticized that he hardly ever stayed outside the provincial capital. Although the elections in October 1904 ended with a similar significant result as four years earlier, but the liberal parliamentary group turned increasingly from the head of government. On February 3, 1905 identified three influential ministers ( including Lomer Gouin ) resigned their offices, five days later demanded 44 MPs Parents resignation.

Finally Gouin announced on March 23, 1905 after printing and entered in favor of Gouin back as Prime Minister, Mayor of Quebec he remained until January 1906. As compensation Laurier Parent appointed as chairman of the influential Railway Commission of the Federation. The collapse of the Quebec Bridge under construction on August 29, 1907, which claimed 75 lives, brought him back into the headlines because he was the president of the competent bridge construction company. The subsequent commission of inquiry cleared him of all guilt and made erroneous calculations of the engineers responsible for the disaster. 1911 Gouin resigned as president of the Railway Commission and instead took the chair of the Water Commission of Québec.