Alexandre J. Doucet
Alexandre-Joseph-Doucet
His origins
Alexandre Doucet was born in Grand-Étang in Nova Scotia on November 1, 1880. He was son of Joseph Romuald Doucet and Sophie LeBlanc. He was born into a family of fourteen children.
He attended the small school in Grand-Étang until grade 8 and obtained his B.A. correspondence.
He settled in Notre-Dame in 1916. He was a farmer and his farm was located where he lives currently Murray McKenny in the Hayes district. In addition to being a farmer, Mr. Doucet was managing secretary of the Maritimes Products Co., an industry he himself initiated. It was corresponding secretary of the provincial farmers’ and dairymen’s association, secretary-treasurer of “La Société d’Agriculture no 180 de Notre-Dame”, member of the General Council of the l’Assomption company and treasurer of the “Grand-Pré Land Committee”.
Alexandre tried his first chance in politics in 1921. He was opposed to Auguste Léger, the liberal candidate. He lost on his first attempt. The count was 4796 votes for Auguste Lightweight and 3,238 votes for Alexandre Doucet.
Alexandre Doucet was not a man who gave up after a defeat. He introduced himself again in 1923. This year we had to have a by-election since the federal deputy August Léger had died. During the Conservative Party convention, Mr. Doucet was elected by acclamation which demonstrates that there was confidence among the delegates that Alexander was the man of victory.
Alexandre Doucet, one of the best speakers in the region, does not disappoint his colleagues conservatives. He won victory over his liberal opponent M. Bourgeois by the margin of 3653 votes to 3466 votes. By winning this victory, he became the only French representative conservative in the Commons and therefore he spoke in the name of the French conservatives of Quebec, of Western Ontario and Acadia.
After his victory, a banquet was held in his honor at the Brunswick Hotel in Moncton. A another banquet was also organized in Montreal on April 3, 1924. Speaking at this banquet, he declared that: “We” (Maritimes Province), “have respected the pact of confederation”, he cried, “we ask ourselves to do the same for ourselves, and not to forget all the sacrifices which we have done for the benefit of the west and other parts of the country. We need you to come to help. Our population, thanks to the liberal regime, emigrates to the United States. We tried to all kinds of means to stifle popular sentiment”. By these words we see that Mr. Doucet wanted the Maritimes to get their fair share of the Canadian economy.
On March 26, 1924, the new member for Kent, Mr. Doucet, made his first speech to the bedroom. This speech, if we judge by the newspaper comments, by the interruptions many who came from the ministerial side, caused a real sensation. The case is quite rare among new deputies who arrived at this result on the first try. Usually they need time and lots of effort. And even, on this account, it does not always manage to make to remark. For the new MP for Kent, this will not have been the case. At first glance, he raised to the level of good “debaters” of the Commons.
Mr. Doucet is a politician who has worked extensively for the rights of Francophones in Canada. In a question asked to the Liberal Government on April 10, 1924, he asked to have the list of Canadian National Railway officers who receive more than $4,000.00 per year (very big salary at the time). The government felt it had to refuse. The newspaper “l’Évangéline” thinks that Mr. Doucet wants to prove by this list that French names would be exceedingly rare among railway executives. In another speech, this one in April 1925, Alexander requested that the government print more in French. Here is an excerpt from his vigorous speech. “I don’t know if the magazine or the Bulletin of Information was printed in the French language in 1921; I don’t even know if the English version was printed at the same time. However, this what I know is that since the pact of confederation there has been a bilingual system in the administration of the country. However, today there are less than 30% of blue books which are translated into French and printed to be made available to the deputation, the commerce and the public in general. I say, Mr. Speaker, that we, who are proud to belong to a bilingual country, where French and English are on an equal footing in administration, we should demand that all publications be made in French and published simultaneously and distributed profusely throughout the country.”
Alexandre Doucet worked extensively for the railways and roads of Kent County. Speaking in the Commons to the minister responsible for railways he complained about the reduction service on the Moncton-Bouctouche train.
Here is an extract from this speech of May 8, 1924.
“I would like to remind the minister that since January 6, 1924, no trains have run on Wednesdays and that, over a distance of thirty-two miles, the population was deprived of their mail that day, although for thirty-four years there has been a daily train between Moncton and Bouctouche, and that for twenty-eight years this train has been transporting correspondence items every day. That is likely to exhaust or reduce the public service with regard to the Moncton railway in Bouctouche.”
The “Margaret” affair
Mr. Doucet’s career promised to be brilliant; he was a capable man, devoted as much as possible for the Acadians and the Maritime people but an unfortunate incident ended his career as a politician. This incident became known as the “Margaret” affair.
It all began when Mr. Doucet, during an assembly in St-Jean, reported that certain federal deputies including the former Minister of Justice, Ernest Lapointe, took a pleasure trip and orgy on one of the government ships employed in the service of the prevention of contraband, the “Margaret”. According to Mr. Doucet the “Margaret” stopped in Quebec and took on board the Minister of Justice and his friends, and they went on a pleasure cruise to the Magdalen Islands, then across the north coast of the St. Lawrence to Saguenay and everyone said they were absent six weeks. Mr. Lapointe denied the assertions made by the member for Kent and he asked the Conservative Prime Minister Mr. Meighen to repudiate this statement by conducting an investigation. Alexander had made a mistake. Looking at the logbook of the “Margaret”, he had seen a certain Mr. Lapointe is registered in this book, but it was not the same Mr. Lapointe, the former Justice Ministry.
An investigation was held and it proved that Alexandre Doucet’s allegations were without foundations.
An election was announced for the month of September and the liberals did not miss their opportunity to share the results of the investigation with the Canadian public. For two weeks consecutively, two full-page advertisements were published in several newspapers which spoke than the “Margaret” affair. So things looked bad for Alexandre and the party conservative.
Last election
On September 16, the Meighen government was defeated as was Alexandre Doucet who suffered the defeat at the hands of liberal Alfred E. Bourgeois. Here is the editorial of Évangéline after the defeat by Alexandre Doucet:
“It is true that we are losing Mr. Doucet who certainly showed himself to be a man of energy and who is better than his unfortunate exits from the last companion would suggest his speech, just as happy last January. But Mr. Doucet did his best to provide his adversaries with the weapons that were used to beat him.”
This was the last election for Mr. Doucet. In March 1929, he was appointed provincial manager of the Capital Life Insurance Company of Canada. The company’s offices were in the Capitol Building on Main Street in Moncton.
In July 1932 he was appointed to the New Brunswick Workers’ Compensation Board. He resigned October 10, 1935.
Alexandre married Philomène LeBlanc but the couple had no children. However, they adopted four.
Alexandre Doucet died on July 28, 1951 in Moncton. He was buried in the Notre-Dame cemetery. Lady. Among the survivors of the former deputy living in Notre-Dame, there is his nephew, Mr. Joe Doucet, and his niece, Mrs. Alyre Landry.
