Return to
 Table of Contents

Serving Agriculture:
Canada's Ministers of Agriculture

Charles Alphonse Pantaléon Pelletier

Birthplace

Federal Constituency

Education

Professional Background

Political Affiliation

Political Career

Pelletier's first election campaign was over before voters had a chance to have their say. Recruited by the Liberals and supported by Jean-Charles Chapais' longtime rival Luc Letellier de Saint-Just, Pelletier challenged Chapais in the first election for the House of Commons in 1867. Irregularities in voters' lists and rioting caused officials to refuse to hold the vote, denying Kamouraska constituents a representative for two years.

Pelletier eventually won the seat in a special double by-election, held in 1869 to select members for both the provincial and the federal governments. Pelletier sat as MP for Kamouraska until 1877. He also represented Quebec East in the Quebec national assembly from 1873 until dual representation was abolished in 1874.

In 1877, Pelletier was appointed minister of agriculture and called to the Senate. His term as minister of agriculture ended with the defeat of the Liberal government in September 1878.

Pelletier was selected speaker of the Senate in 1896 and served until 1901. He resigned from the Senate to accept an appointment as puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec in 1904.

In 1908 he resigned from the Superior Court to serve as lieutenant-governor of Quebec until his death in Quebec City in 1911.

Departmental Developments

In 1877, Pelletier found it necessary to further modify the cattle quarantine regulations and ban the import of neat cattle, as well as cattle parts, straw, fodder or other products capable of carrying disease, in order to protect against rinderpest from England and other parts of Europe. Diligent quarantine efforts also helped prevent the introduction of contagious hog typhoid into Canada that year.

By 1878, the department's annual report stated that "owing to the selection and care of our importers, and partly owing to our Cattle Quarantine establishments, no disease has been introduced into the country". The Imperial Government in the United Kingdom found Canada's new inspection and quarantine system so reliable in preventing the spread of contagious animal diseases that Canada was exempt from the provisions of imperial disease control legislation, which required all animals imported into the United Kingdom to be slaughtered immediately. Even 120 years ago, Canadian efforts to prevent and control animal disease facilitated international trade in livestock.

Accomplishments as Minister

Pelletier oversaw the creation of the first Dominion Council of Agriculture in 1877. Thirteen representatives of agricultural societies, provincial agriculture councils and commodity groups from every province were appointed to the council. Pelletier became honorary president, while David Christie, the speaker of the Senate from Paris, Ontario, was selected president. Twelve standing committees were formed to study timely agricultural concerns.

Based on the department's success in promoting Canadian agriculture at the 1876 World's Fair in Philadelphia, Pelletier organized a Canadian exhibition for the Metropolitan Exhibition held in Sydney, Australia in 1877. Exhibitors and the department had little time to research what types of products might be suitable for Australian trade--some goods were shipped directly from Philadelphia to Sydney--but the exhibits, totalling 550 cubic tons of ocean freight, were well received. Some exhibits won prizes, while others helped spark trade in several industries and commodities. The total cost to the department was $26,433, a sum Pelletier called "moderate" in his annual report.

Additional awards, trade opportunities and national recognition resulted from Canada's participation in a similar international exposition in Paris in 1878.

Worth Noting

• Pelletier was a major in the 9th Battalion Voltigeurs de Québec during the Fenian Raids of 1866.
• Pelletier founded Quebec's Parti National in 1872, a party that went on to form a nationalist government in Quebec under Honoré Mercier in 1887.
• Adolphe Routhier, a lawyer from Kamouraska defeated by Pelletier in the 1869 election, wrote the French words of our national anthem: " O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux!"