Sir Louis-Hippolyte Ménard dit La Fontaine, 1st Baronet, KCMG (October 4, 1807 – February 26, 1864) was a Canadian politician, jurist and statesman, who served as the first Premier of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible government in Canada along side Robert Baldwin.
La Fontaine was born in Boucherville, Lower Canada in 1807.
His last name is often written in one word (Lafontaine or LaFontaine); his own signature was one word.
La Fontaine was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in 1830.
Province of Canada: The fight for responsible government
He was a supporter of Papineau and member of the Parti canadien (later the Parti patriote). After the severe consequences of the Rebellions of 1837 against the British authorities, he advocated political reforms within the new Union regime of 1841.
Under this Union of the two Canadas he worked with Robert Baldwin in the formation of a party of Upper and Lower Canadian liberal reformers. He and Baldwin formed a government in 1842 but resigned in 1843. In 1848 he was asked by the Governor-General, Lord Elgin, to form the first administration under the new policy of responsible government. The La Fontaine-Baldwin government, formed on March 11, battled for the restoration of the official status of the French language, which was abolished with the Union Act, and the principles of responsible government and the double-majority in the voting of bills.
While Baldwin was reforming Canada West (Upper Canada), La Fontaine passed bills to abolish the tenure seigneuriale (seigneurial system) and grant amnesty to the leaders of the rebellions in Lower Canada who had been exiled. The bill passed, but it was not accepted by the loyalists of Canada East who rioted and burned down the Parliament in Montreal.
Following the rebellion in Lower Canada, and the similar rebellion in 1837 in Upper Canada (now Ontario), the British government decided to merge the two provinces into a single province, as recommended by Lord Durham in the Durham Report. The Union Act, 1840, passed by the British Parliament, abolished the two provinces and their separate parliaments. It created the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament for the entire province, composed of an elected Legislative Assembly and an appointed Legislative Council. The Governor General initially retained a strong position in the government.
LaFontaine had been a member of the Parti patriote and a supporter of Louis-Joseph Papineau leading up to the Rebellion, but after the Rebellion failed he re-examined his political views. He decided to switch to a system of working within the existing constitutional order to achieve the political rights of French-Canadians. He adopted the cause of responsible government, where the Governor General would appoint the members of the Executive Council from the groups which controlled a majority in the elected Legislative Assembly. Anticipating that he would stand for election in the riding of Terrebonne, with a large majority population of French-Canadians, LaFontaine set out his new political approach in an Address to the Electors of Terrebonne.
At that time, it was not uncommon for there to be election violence. Voting was by open-ballot, where each voter publicly declared their vote at the poll. One common tactic was for the supporters of one candidate to try to control the poll and prevent the voters for the other candidate from voting. In the run-up to the Terrebonne election in March 1841, LaFontaine began to hear rumours that Sydenham and the supporters for the government candidate, Michael McCulloch, planned to bring in large numbers of men from outside the riding to control the poll and prevent his supporters from voting. One of LaFontaine's supporters wrote to him and suggested that they could hold the poll, if he was able to organise one thousand men to support his position.
One of the English-language newspapers in Montreal expressly stated that the goal was to prevent French-Canadians from voting in the poll:
From the known character of the majority of the electors in Terrebonne, we doubt not that LaFontaine would be returned if all the voters were polled; but it must be the duty of the loyalists to muster in their strength and keep the poll!"
The poll was located at New Glasgow, one of the few towns in the riding with an English-speaking majority, and located on the outskirts of the riding, away from the major population centres. The day of the election, LaFontaine led a group of his supporters in a march to New Glasgow, where they would vote. Fearing violence, many of them were armed with clubs and pitchforks, which was not uncommon in contested elections. As they neared New Glasgow, they found the road blocked by groups of men supporting McCulloch, perhaps six or seven hundred in total. They too were armed, many with clubs, but some with firearms. Small fights began to break out, and there was blood on the snow. LaFontaine, fearing for the safety of his supporters, abandoned the march to New Glasgow. Since only McCulloch's supporters voted for him, the returning officer declared McCulloch the elected candidate.
At first, LaFontaine thought there was no point in continuing in politics and announced his retirement from public life. But then a surprising event occurred. Robert Baldwin, a leading Reformer in Canada West, contacted LaFontaine. Following the elections in Canada West, there was a vacant seat, York 4th, where Baldwin had been elected as a Reformer but had resigned. Baldwin offered to nominate LaFontaine as the candidate for the riding in the upcoming by-election, with the support of the local Reform party members. Before making the offer to LaFontaine, Baldwin had obtained the agreement of David Willson, leader of the Children of Peace, a Quaker religious group that was made up of strong Reformers, and Willson had agreed.
LaFontaine gratefully accepted the offer, and with the support of Baldwin and the local Reformers, was elected in the by-election. The concept of a French-Canadian winning a seat in Canada West was remarkable. It was a strong indicator to French-Canadians that they had allies in their quest for popular control of the provincial government. A leading French-Canadian journalist and political writer, Étienne Parent, had accompanied LaFontaine to Canada West and reported back on their reception by West Canada reformers: "Ils élisent M. Lafontaine pour montrer, disent-ils, leur sympathie envers les Bas-Canadiens, et leur détestation des mauvais traitements et des injustices auxquelles nous avons été exposés."
The episode was the beginning of the alliance between reformers in Canada East and Canada West that LaFontaine had argued for in his Address to the Electors.
Baldwin also insisted that Sydenham include La Fontaine in the reformed Executive Council, or he would resign as Solicitor General. Their alliance allowed La Fontaine to have a seat in the assembly in 1841 and for Baldwin to win the by-election in 1843.