Date Published:
August 2004

Biographies of Prominent Quebec and Canadian

Historical Figures

Édouard Montpetit

(1881-1954)

Damien-Claude Bélanger,

Department of History,

McGill University .

Economist, was born at Montmagny, Quebec. He was educated at the Collège de Montréal and at the Université Laval de Montréal. Called to the Quebec Bar in 1904, he quickly turned his attention to journalism and the lecture circuit. In 1907 Montpetit received a provincial scholarship that enabled him to pursue post-graduate studies in political science at the École libre des sciences politiques in Paris. On his return to Canada, he was appointed professor of political economy at the Université Laval de Montréal and at the newly opened École des Hautes Études commerciales. Elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1914, he received a number of honorary degrees during his long and distinguished academic career. In 1918 Montpetit was the founding editor of the Revue trimestrielle canadienne. Two years later, he was appointed secretary-general of the new Université de Montréal. He became the university's head of external affairs in 1931 and served as the dean of its Faculty of Social Science. In 1941 the government of Quebec named him director of technical education for the province. A prolific author and an influential nationalist, deeply concerned by French Canada's economic inferiority, Édouard Montpetit played a key role in the development of economic science in Quebec . His 1940 collection of essays, Reflets d'Amérique, urged French Canadians to resist Americanization.

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