PC ,
CC ,
QC ,
BA ,
LL.D (
October 21 ,
1925 -
January 6 ,
2005 ), popularly known as "Little Louis" or "Ti-Louis" (due both for his short height and his sharing a name with
"Uncle Louis" St. Laurent ), was a
Canadian Lawyer and
Politician . He served as
Premier of
New Brunswick from
1960 to
1970 . Elected to the New Brunswick
Legislature in
1952 , he became provincial
Liberal leader in
1958 and led his party to victory in
1960 ,
1963 and
1967 before its defeat by
Richard Hatfield 's
Conservatives in
1970 .
The first
Acadian premier of New Brunswick since
Peter J. Veniot and the first to win an
Election , Robichaud modernized the province's
Hospital s and
Public School s and introduced a wide range of
Social Reform s. The Liberals also passed an act in
1969 making New Brunswick officially
Bilingual . “Language rights," he said when he introduced the legislation, "are more than legal rights. They are precious cultural rights, going deep into the revered past and touching the historic traditions of all our people.”
Robichaud also restructured the
Municipal Tax regime, ending the ability of business of playing one municipality against another in order to extract the lowest tax rates. He also expanded the government and sought to ensure that the quality of
Health Care ,
Education and social services was the same across the province -- a programme he called
Equal Opportunity , which is still a political
Buzz Phrase in New Brunswick. "When I first realized that there was absolutely no equal opportunity, no equality, in New Brunswick," he recalled in the 1980s, "well, I had to come to the conclusion that something had to be done immediately."
He was instrumental in the creation of the
Université De Moncton in
1963 .
In
1969 , a high school was named in his honour in
Shediac , New Brunswick.
In
1971 , upon resigning from the legislature, he was made a Companion of the
Order Of Canada and Canadian chairman of the
International Joint Commission , a post he held until being called to the
Senate Of Canada on
December 21 ,
1973 . He sat in the Senate until his mandatory retirement from the
Upper House on
October 21 ,
2000 upon reaching his seventy-fifth birthday.
He was a resident of New Brunswick at the time of his death of
Cancer at the Hôpital Stella-Maris-de-Kent in
Sainte-Anne-de-Kent , near his birth place of
Saint-Antoine, New Brunswick . The cancer had been discovered only a few weeks before his death.
