Raoul Dandurand

Dandurand and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in state clothing, 19 May 1939.

Dandurand graduated from the Faculty of Law at Université Laval, and worked as a corporate lawyer in Quebec.

Dandurand, a Montreal lawyer, was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1898 by Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He served as Speaker of the Senate of Canada from 1905 to 1909 and was either Leader of the Government in the Canadian Senate or Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Senate from 1921 until 1942.[1][2][3] As Government Leader in the Senate he served in every Cabinet formed by William Lyon Mackenzie King from 1921 until Dandurand's death in 1942.

He also served as President of the League of Nations Assembly in 1925 and was Canada's delegate to the League's council from 1927 to 1930.[4] He is perhaps best remembered for having said, in 1924, that in international affairs Canada was “a fireproof house, far from inflammable materials.”[5]

King relied heavily on Dandurand and Ernest Lapointe for advice on Quebec as well as on international affairs and it was Dandurand who suggested Louis St. Laurent for King's Cabinet after Lapointe's death.

After his death, he was entombed at the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.[6]

In January 1886, Dandurand married Joséphine Marchand, daughter of Quebec premier and dramatist Hon Félix-Gabriel Marchand and his wife, Marie Herselie Turgeon. Josephine was born in Saint-Jean, Quebec, and was educated at the Convent of Les Dames de la Congregation de Notre Dame a branch of Villa-Maria. Her literary works included dramatic pieces, papers and essays on subjects of public interest and in relation to women's duties, rights and place. She founded and edited Le Coin du Feu, a women's paper.

She was a member and office-bearer of the National Council of Women of Canada, in which she advanced practical schemes for the promotion of the industrial and fine arts in Canada and the establishment of a Department of Art. She was a member and office-bearer of the Women's Historical Society, the Victorian Order of Nurses. She was President of the Crèche of the Sisters of Mercy, Montreal, Quebec. In 1898, she was created an Officier Academic by the French government. In 1900, she was appointed as a Commissioner from the Canadian government of Canada to the Paris Exposition in Ottawa. In March 1903, she delivered an address before the Alliance française on "La Sociabilite." [7]

There is a Dandurand-Marchand collection at Library and Archives Canada.[8]

• Université Laval

• Works by or about Raoul Dandurand at Internet Archive
• Raoul Dandurand – Parliament of Canada biography