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Louis Stephen St. Laurent, PC, CC, QC (''Saint-Laurent'' or ''St-Laurent'' in French, baptized Louis-Étienne St-Laurent), (1 February 188225 July 1973) was the 12th Prime Minister of Canada, from 15 November 1948 to 21 June 1957. He was a Liberal with a strong base in the Catholic francophone community, from which base he had long mobilised support to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. His foreign policy initiatives transformed Canada from an isolationism with little role in world affairs to an active "middle power." St. Laurent was an enthusiastic proponent of Canada's joining NATO in 1949 to fight Communist totalitarianism, overcoming opposition from some intellectuals, the far left, and many French Canadians.〔James Eayrs, ''In Defence of Canada: volume 4: Growing Up Allied'' (1980) pp 54–62〕 The contrast with Mackenzie King was not dramatic – they agreed on most policies. St. Laurent had more hatred of communism, and less fear of the United States. He was neither an idealist nor a bookish intellectual, but an "eminently moderate, cautious conservative man....and a strong Canadian nationalist."〔Donald Creighton, ''The Forked Road: Canada 1939–1957'' (1976) 159〕 == Early life and career == Louis St-Laurent ((:lwi sɛ̃ lɔʁɑ̃)) was born on 1 February 1882 in Compton, Quebec, a village in the Eastern Townships to Jean-Baptiste-Moïse Saint-Laurent, a French-Canadian, and Mary Anne Broderick, an Irish-Canadian. He grew up fluently bilingual. His English had a noticeable Irish brogue, while his gestures (such as a hunch of the shoulders) were French.〔''Mr. Prime Minister 1867–1964'', by Bruce Hutchison, Toronto 1964, Longmans Canada publishers.〕 He received degrees from St. Charles Seminary (B.A. 1902) and Université Laval (LL.L. 1905). He was offered, but declined, a Rhodes Scholarship upon this graduation from Laval in 1905. In 1905 he married Jeanne Renault (1886–1966) with whom he had two sons and three daughters. St-Laurent worked as a lawyer from 1905 to 1941, also becoming a professor of law at Université Laval in 1914. St-Laurent practised corporate and constitutional law in Quebec and became one of the country's most respected counsel. He served as President of the Canadian Bar Association from 1930 to 1932.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Canadian Bar Association: Past CBA Presidents )〕 St-Laurent's father, a Compton shopkeeper, was a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada and was particularly enamoured with Sir Wilfrid Laurier. When Laurier led the Liberals to victory in the 1896 election, 14-year-old Louis relayed the election returns from the telephone in his father's store. However, while an ardent Liberal, Louis remained aloof from active politics for much of his life, focusing instead on his legal career and family. He became one of Quebec's leading lawyers and was so highly regarded that he was offered a position in the Cabinet of the Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Meighen in 1926 and was offered a seat as a justice in the Supreme Court of Canada. It was not until he was nearly 60 that St-Laurent finally agreed to enter politics when Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King appealed to his sense of duty in late 1941. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis St. Laurent」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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