Léoda Gauthier

Jeremiah Léoda Gauthier (29 December 1904 – 17 January 1964) was a Canadian Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1958. A member of the Liberal Party caucus, he represented three different ridings over the course of his career as the city of Sudbury grew in size and importance to warrant one, and then two, ridings of its own.

Background Born in Copper Cliff, Ontario, Gauthier owned a lumber company in the Sudbury area, and the Victorian Order of Nurses. The following year, he was one of six MPs who demanded that the government of Mackenzie King reinstitute food subsidies and remove the sales tax from food, to counter the rising cost of living and the emerging power of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.

In the 1949 election, he shifted to the new riding of Sudbury, which he also represented for a single term. In the 1953 election, he became the first MP for Nickel Belt,

During his time as an MP, he played a role in securing government funding for the construction of the Sudbury Airport, although he raised a public objection when he did not receive a formal invitation to the airport's official opening in 1954.

He was reelected in the 1957 election, which resulted in the election of John Diefenbaker's short-lived minority government, but retired at the 1958 election for health reasons.

He died on 17 January 1964, at Memorial Hospital in Sudbury.