Camillien Houde

Camillien Houde (August 13, 1889 – September 11, 1958) was a mayor of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Born in Montreal and first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec as a member of the Conservative Party in 1923, he was defeated in 1927 but re-elected in a by-election on October 24, 1928. He was elected leader of the Conservative Party on July 10, 1929 but lost the 1931 election and failed to win a seat. He resigned as Conservative leader on September 19, 1932.

He moved to federal politics and lost in a bid for election as a Conservative candidate in a by-election in 1938, but won election in 1949 as an independent candidate. He did not run for re-election in 1953.

Simultaneously, he was mayor of Montreal from 1928 to 1932, from 1934 to 1936, from 1938 to 1940, and from 1944 to 1954. In its February 20, 1939 issue, Time Magazine quoted from Mayor Camillien Houdes speech to a YMCA audience on the subject of War in Europe: "If war comes, and if Italy is on one side and England on the other, the sympathy of the French-Canadians in Quebec will be on the side of Italy. Remember that the great majority of French-Canadians are Roman Catholics, and that the Pope is in Rome. We French-Canadians are Normans, not Latins, but we have become Latinized over a long period of years. The French-Canadians are Fascists by blood, but not by name. The Latins have always been in favor of dictators."

When World War II came, Houde then campaigned against conscription but following the national plebiscite in favour of a military draft, on August 2, 1940 Houde publicly countenanced the men of Quebec to ignore the National Registration Act. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the RCMP on charges of sedition and after being found guilty was confined in an internment camp in Petawawa, Ontario and Gagetown, New Brunswick until 1944. Upon his release, the still popular Houde ran in the 1944 election and won back his job as Montreal mayor.

On his death in 1958, Camillien Houde was interred in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal, Quebec.

Elections as party leader

Quebec: He lost the 1931 election.

Quotes

Your majesty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and Madame Houde here thanks you from her bottom too. Speaking to King George VI in 1939.

See also

• Politics of Quebec
• List of Quebec general elections
• List of Quebec leaders of the Opposition
• Timeline of Quebec history
• Conscription Crisis of 1944

External links

• National Assembly biography (in French)