- Pierre-François Casgrain
Pierre-François Casgrain, PC (
August 4 ,1886 –August 2 ,1950 ) was a Canadian politician andSpeaker of the Canadian House of Commons from 1936 to 1940.Born in
Montreal ,Quebec , his father was a physician. Following the death of his mother when he was three years old, he was raised by his grandmother. Casgrain graduated in law fromUniversité Laval and practiced in Montreal where he worked as an organizer for theLiberal Party of Canada and theLiberal Party of Quebec .When his father-in-law, Sir
Rodolphe Forget , the ConservativeMember of Parliament (MP) for Charlevoix, retired from politics, Casgrain decided to run for the seat as a Liberal in the 1917 election. The campaign occurred as a result of theConscription Crisis of 1917 . Casgrain ran as an opponent of the draft ("seeLaurier Liberals ", and was elected to theCanadian House of Commons .From 1921 to 1925, Casgrain was the
parliamentary whip of the Quebec Liberal caucus, and from 1926 to 1936, he was the Chief Whip of the Liberal caucus.Casgrain was nominated by Prime Minister
William Lyon Mackenzie King to be Speaker of the House in 1936. He served in this position until 1940 when he was appointed to the Cabinet asSecretary of State for Canada , a position that had sweeping emergency powers duringWorld War II . In 1941, Casgrain was given a judicial appointment, and retired from politics. He died in 1950.Casgrain's wife,
Thérèse Casgrain , was a prominent political figure in her own right.External links
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s-ttl|title=
Member of Parliament forCharlevoix—Montmorency
years=1917–1925s-ttl|title=
Member of Parliament forCharlevoix—Saguenay
years=1925–1941s-ttl|title=Chief Government Whip
years=1924-1926s-ttl|title=Chief Government Whip
years=1927-1930
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