Maurice Bellemare
Canadian politician (1912-1989)
Maurice Bellemare, (8 June 1912 – 15 June 1989) was a politician in Quebec, Canada. He was known as Le Vieux Lion de la Politique Québécoise (The Old Lion of Quebec Politics) because of his colourful style and his many years of public office. Bellemare was one of the last survivors of the Union Nationale party.
Member of the legislature
Born in Grand-Mère, Quebec, Bellemare served seven consecutive terms as Member of the Legislative Assembly for the district of Champlain in the Mauricie area. He was a member of the Union nationale and first was elected in the 1944 provincial election at the age of 32, when Maurice Duplessis was put back in office as Premier of Quebec.
Gaining influence
Bellemare served as the Deputy Government House Whip, from the 1948 provincial election to 1953, and as the Government House Whip, from 1953 to 1959.
He also was the mayor of Saint-Jean-des-Piles, a small town in the Mauricie area, from 1954 to 1957.
After the Duplessis's death in 1959, Paul Sauvé became Premier. He appointed Bellemare to the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio. The function is honorary for the most part, but indicates that Bellemare was gaining political clout.
The public source identifies “Maurice Bellemare” as canadian politician (1912-1989). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maurice, Bellemare and Canadian.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3300392. VIAF identifies the subject as 317273611. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1989, 1944 and 1948.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maurice Bellemare” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.