Maurice Bourget

Maurice Bourget, PC (October 20, 1907 – March 29, 1979) was a Canadian politician who was Speaker of the Canadian Senate from April 27, 1963 to January 6, 1966.

Bourget was born in Lauzon, Quebec and played semi-professional baseball and softball in Levis as a young man. He trained as a civil engineer and practiced in Levis.

A Liberal since the age of 19, Bourget was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal in 1940. Bourget and several other Quebec Liberal MPs had broken with their party the year before during the Conscription Crisis of 1944, quitting the Liberal caucus in order to oppose the government's decision to deploy National Resources Mobilization Act conscripts overseas. Previously, conscripts had only been used for "home defence" and kept within Canada.^[1] He ran and was re-elected as an "Independent Liberal" in 1945 defeating his only opponent, a Social Credit candidate.

Bourget reconciled with the Liberal Party in the post-war period and was again elected as a Liberal in 1949 and was re-elected in subsequent elections until his defeat in 1962 due to an upsurge in support for the Social Credit party.

As an MP, Bourget served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1951. From 1953 to 1957 he served as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Public Works.

He returned to parliament in 1963 when he was appointed to the Senate on the advice of the newly elected Liberal Prime Minister, Lester Pearson and was concurrently appointed Speaker of the upper house. As such, he also served as Joint Chairman of the Canadian delegation to the meeting of the Canada-U.S.A. Inter parliamentary Group at Washington in January 1964 and Joint Chairman of the Inter parliamentary Conference held in Ottawa in September 1965.

Bourget stepped down as Speaker in January 1966 and was appointed to the Privy Council in February. He remained a Senator until his death in 1979.

References

• Maurice Bourget – Parliament of Canada biography
• Speakers of the Senate biography

Speakers of the Senate of Canada
Cauchon J. Ross Cauchon Botsford Cauchon Chauveau Christie Wilmot Macpherson Botsford Macpherson Miller Plumb Allan Lacoste J. J. Ross Pelletier Power Dandurand Kerr Landry Bolduc Bostock Hardy Blondin Foster Parent Vien King Beauregard Robertson Drouin White Bourget Smith Deschatelets Fergusson Lapointe Grosart Marchand Riel Charbonneau LeBlanc Molgat Hays Kinsella Nolin Housakos Furey