- Tancrède Labbé
Joseph-Tancrède Labbé (
June 18 1887 —December 13 1956 ) was a prominentQuebec politician and businessman. [ [http://www.assnat.qc.ca/fra/membres/notices/j-l/labbt.htm Biography of Tancrède Labbé, Assemblée nationale du Québec] ] He was the father of media mogulFrançois Labbé .Background
Has was born on
June 18 ,1887 in East Broughton to parents who operated a farm and studied at theFrères des Écoles Chrétiennes , and studied commerce in Sainte-Marie.He first worked as a general store clerk, and after that as a manager from 1913 to 1919 and after that, became a grocer when he founded T. Labbé Ltd. He also started an
ice cream plant, Produits Régal LTD, in 1921, which kept going until the 1980's, but with different owners. He was a member of the provincial ice cream producers association and became a director forThetford Asbestos , a mining company.Labbé was honorary member of the
Thetford Mines Chamber of Commerce from 1931 to 1937 and from 1947 to 1951. Member of theCanadian Club ,Rotary Club and theKnights of Columbus .Mayor
He was elected mayor of
Thetford Mines on February 3, 1931 and kept his seat until February 9, 1937. He was elected mayor again in May 1946 and stayed there until May 1951.Member of the Legislature
He was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Quebec in Mégantic in 1935 for theAction libérale nationale . Labbé joinedMaurice Duplessis 's Union Nationale and was re-elected in 1936.He was defeated in 1939, but managed to win a
by-election on November 19, 1940 and was re-elected in 1944, 1948, 1952 and 1956. He became aMinister without Portfolio in Duplessis's Cabinet in 1944.With 11 years in office, he was the longest tenured mayor of Thetford Mines until
Henri Therrien retired after 12 years in office in 1999. [ Le Soleil (November 8 1999, P. A-6) "Thetford Mines: Majorité de 77 voix"] He was the only politician to have been mayor of Thetford Mines and provincial MLA at the same time, from 1935 to 1937 and from 1946 to 1951, a practice that is now forbidden in Quebec.Laurent Lessard became a provincial MNA for theLiberal Party of Quebec after resigning as mayor ofThetford Mines in 2003.Labbé was the first MLA from the Mégantic (now Frontenac) county to become a minister and the only Union Nationale MLA from the county to do so. After him,
Roger Lefebvre andLaurent Lessard ¸ both Liberals, also became ministers. [ Le Soleil (February 19 2005, P. A-12) "Laurent Lessard n'est que le troisième ministre issu de Frontenac"]Death
He died in office in Saint-Romuald,
Quebec on December 13, 1956.References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
