Date Published:
September 2007

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Sir Lomer Gouin, K. C.

Premier of Quebec.

SIR LOMER GOUIN, lawyer, Premier of Quebec, was born at Grondines, Que., March 19th, 1861, his father being N. Gouin, M.D., a well-known local practitioner.

His classical studies were made at Sorel and Lévis Colleges; his law studies in Montreal. His first partnership after being admitted to the Bar in January, 1884, was with Judge Pagnuelo and the Hon. L. O. Taillon. He has since been associated with the Hon. Judge Robidoux, Hon. Raymond Préfontaine, Mr. Rodolphe Lemieux, M.P. and Mr. Évariste Brassard. He soon made a mark for himself at the Bar especially in railway and election cases. A strong liberal and possessed of a good command of language and close reasoning capacity, he was while yet a young man drawn into the whirl of politics and figured conspicuously in the work of the liberal clubs of Montreal district. In 1891 he accepted the nomination to contest the County of Richelieu in the liberal interest against Sir Hector Langevin, the then minister of Public Works, who defeated him by a narrow majority. In the general elections of 1897, as the party candidate for the Provincial Legislature in Montreal, he was elected over Mr. Auger, M.P.P., which seat he has held ever since. Being now Premier of Quebec.

In February, 1900, was elected to a seat in the Montreal city council as alderman for the East ward but resigned a few months later upon receiving the portfolio of public works in the Parent administration, to which the portfolio of colonization was added the next year. He has been a member of the Catholic section of the Council of Public Instruction for several years, and has always been a forcible defender of Montreal's civic autonomy in the Quebec House. In 1888, was married to Eliza, daughter of the late Hon. Honoré Mercier and their surviving family consists of two sons, Léon Mercier Gouin and Paul Gouin.

Sir Lomer Gouin is a member of the Club Canadien, Montreal; the St. Denis Club, Montreal; the Montreal Reform Club and the Garrison Club, Quebec.

Source: Canadian History Makers. A Volume Containing Accurate and Concise Sketches of Men who have Done Things in The Dominion of Canada Past and Present Together with Photogravures Made from their Latest Photographs, Montreal, Canadian Publication Society, 1913, 159p., p. 147.