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'Francis Daniel Johnson, Sr.' , PC (April 9, 1915 – September 26, 1968) was a Quebec politician and Premier of Quebec from 1966 until his death in 1968.

Contents

Profile

Elections as party leader

See also

External links

Profile

Johnson was born in Danville, Quebec, Canada. He was the son of Francis Johnson, an anglophone journalist of Irish heritage, and Marie-Adéline Daniel, a Québécoise. He was raised bilingually but educated entirely in French.
He was the minister who started the Manic-5 hydroelectric project in 1958. He was first elected leader of the conservative Union Nationale party in 1961.
In 1965, his book entitled, ''Égalité ou indépendance'' (Equality or independence), made him the first leader of a Quebec political party to recognise the possibility of independence for Canada from the British Crown -- and if the English-speaking Canadian didn't want to be independent, then Quebec could do it alone. His position on the issue was seen to be ambiguous: as he wrote in his book, his position was for "independence if necessary, but not necessarily independence" (a reference to Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King's famous utterance in the WWII conscription debate).
Under the same slogan, ''Égalité ou indépendance'', he was elected as premier of Quebec in 1966. He retained this position until his death in 1968. His term was, among other things, qualified by tensions with the Government of Canada over constitutional matters, because as Premier of Quebec he put forward proposals to reform the Canadian constitution based on the notion of two equal nations as opposed to ten equal provinces.
His sons, Pierre-Marc Johnson and Daniel Johnson, Jr also became premiers of Quebec: Pierre-Marc as leader of the sovereigntist ''Parti Québécois'' for a brief period in 1985, and Daniel Jr as leader of the federalist Quebec Liberal Party for nine months in 1994.

Elections as party leader

He lost the 1962 election.
He won the 1966 election and died in office in 1968.

See also

★ Politics of Quebec

★ List of Quebec premiers

★ List of Quebec general elections

★ Timeline of Quebec history

★ Nicknames of politicians and personalities in Quebec

External links

★ Extensive biography from Marianopolis College

★ National Assembly biography