1. In 1899, Bourassa was outspoken against the British government's request for Canada to send a militia to fight for Britain in the Second Boer War.
22 Facts About Henri Bourassa
1. 2.
Henri Bourassa unsuccessfully challenged the proposal to build warships to help protect the empire.
3.
Henri Bourassa led the opposition to conscription during World War I and argued that Canada's interests were not at stake.
4.
Henri Bourassa opposed Catholic bishops who defended military support of Britain and its allies.
5.
Henri Bourassa was a defining force in forging French Canada's attitude to the Canadian Confederation of 1867.
6.
Henri Bourassa was educated at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
7.
Henri Bourassa argued that Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier was un vendu to British Empire and its supporters in Canada.
8.
Henri Bourassa led the Ligue until he retired from the assembly on September 5,1912.
9.
Henri Bourassa continued to criticize Laurier, whose compromises mostly helped the British Empire.
10.
Henri Bourassa opposed Laurier's attempts to build a Canadian Navy in 1910, which he believed would draw Canada into future wars between Britain and Germany.
11.
Henri Bourassa supported the eventual creation of an independent navy but did not want it to be under British command, as Laurier had planned.
12.
Henri Bourassa's attacks depleted Laurier's strength in Quebec and contributed to the Liberal Party's loss in the 1911 election.
13.
Henri Bourassa chose the name Le Devoir for his newspaper because of its emphasis of his commitment to integrity and justice and his desire to serve the public good.
14.
In 1913, Henri Bourassa denounced the government of Ontario as "more Prussian than Prussia" during the Ontario Schools Question crisis after Ontario had almost banned the use of French in its schools and made English its official language of instruction.
15.
Henri Bourassa charged his compatriots to see their enemies inside Canada, in 1915:.
16.
Henri Bourassa led French-Canadian opposition to the participation in World War I, especially Robert Borden's plans to implement conscription in 1917.
17.
Henri Bourassa agreed that the war was necessary for the survival of France and Britain but felt that only Canadians who volunteered for service should be sent to the battlefields of Europe.
18.
Henri Bourassa opposed the draft during the conscription crisis of 1944 in World War II though less effectively, and he was a member of the Bloc populaire.
19.
Henri Bourassa is not related to Robert Bourassa, the former premier of Quebec.
20.
Henri Bourassa was distinctly liberal in his anti-imperialism and general support for civil liberties for French Canadians, and his approach to economic questions was essentially Catholic.
21.
Henri Bourassa opposed state intervention wherever possible and increasingly throughout his career emphasized the need for moral reform.
22.
Henri Bourassa appears in "The Trial of Terrence Meyers", episode 15 of season 13 of the Canadian television period drama Murdoch Mysteries.