Étienne-Théodore Pâquet

Étienne-Théodore Pâquet (; January 8, 1850 – May 26, 1916) was a French-Canadian civil law notary,provincial politician and civil servant. In 1879, he was one of four Liberal Members of the Legislative Assembly who crossed the floor in the middle of a parliamentary crisis, causing the Joly-de-Lotbinière government to fall.

Biography

Pâquet was born an only child in 1850 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, in what was then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Quebec City, in Canada East. The Pâquet family was an influential one, with churchmen Benjamin and Louis-Honoré, and theologian Louis-Adolphe Pâquet all important figures of the day. Étienne-Théodore's parents, Étienne-Théodore Sr. and Nathalie Moffat, were farmers and merchants. Étienne-Théodore Sr. was mayor of Saint-Nicolas between 1867 and 1873.

Pâquet studied at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, then at Fordham University (then St. John's College), before returning to Quebec to complete a Bachelor of Civil Law degree at Université Laval, graduating in 1872 and beginning work as a civil law notary while taking care of the farm. In the 1875 provincial election, he ran as a liberal against Joseph-Goderic Blanchet in the riding of Lévis. Blanchet, a family friend, nearly twice Pâquet's age, saw to point this out during the campaign,

Pâquet was re-elected in the 1878 election, which had formed a minority liberal government that was in precarious position for its entire sitting. On October 29, 1879, a series of political crises lead Liberal MLA Edmund James Flynn to propose an amendment demanding a coalition government. Pâquet and three other Liberals (Alexandre Chauveau, Louis Napoléon Fortin and Ernest Racicot) crossed the floor alongside Flynn to join the conservatives, causing the government to fall. Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille, however, declined to dissolve the legislature, instead prompting opposition leader Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau to form a new government, in which Pâquet was Provincial Secretary until July 1882. He was re-elected to his seat in November of that year, only to resign it upon his nomination to the legislative council. He married the daughter of prominent businessman Auguste LaRue in the cathedral of Trois-Rivières in 1880. Due to infighting in the party, the investiture in Lévis for the 1881 elections was difficult to obtain, with disgruntled party members pitching him against Isidore-Noël Belleau, but Pâquet eventually gained the nomination and the election. In his later years, Pâquet wrote and published a historical account of the parish of Saint-Nicolas. His only son, Étienne-Théodore Jnr., married the daughter of Eugène-Étienne Taché.