by Phyllis Logie

Created on: September 21, 2010   Last Updated: September 24, 2010

Born in Saint-Lin, East Canada on the 18th November 1841, Wilfrid Laurier grew up to be the seventh Prime Minister of Canada and took office on the 11th July 1896 where he for fifteen years thereafter.

Wilfrid has been described as a charming and intelligent young man who graduated from McGill University in 1864 and soon after graduating he was called to the bar.  Before joining the liberal party he belonged to the ‘Rogue party’ (Red Party) and in their bid for political change held radical and extremist political views.  However, after some time he become disenchanted and decided to join the liberal party, eventually becoming a key member in the party’s efforts to bring about reform and the unification of Canada.

In August 1868 he met and married Zoe Lafontaine; a union that was to remain childless. In 1874 he was elected to the House of Commons and was appointed Minister of Inland Revenue in the Alexander McKenzie's government.  In 1887 he was elected leader of the liberal party after the resignation of Edward Blake and worked tirelessly to build a strong party base, in preparation for the next general election. 

He was the first French speaking prime Minister and had a strong personal following in Quebec, however he was also able to gather strong support in many other parts of the country. In 1896 he was elected Prime Minister of Canada and ten years later in 1897 he received a knighthood, which by all accounts he reluctantly accepted. One of the key components of his success was his ability to build a strong liberal base in Quebec where there had been a conservative stronghold for eighteen years.  This achievement was ably assisted by  French-Canadians who were becoming increasingly alienated from conservative thinking, mainly due to their links with anti-French and anti-coalition Orangemen in the English speaking parts of Canada.

One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to bring about a much need solution to the controversy which surrounded the establishment of Catholic faith schools in Manitoba.   This was in fact the undoing of the conservative government led by Mckenzie Bowell.  Bowell’s government refused to entertain the idea of Catholic faith schools in Canada.  Laurier however, was able to bring about a compromise in which he advocated that if there were sufficient catholic students in any one particular area, then a Catholic faith school would

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