Hon. Raymond Prefontaine

Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine was a member of an old French family which was established in 1680 in New France. Mr. Préfontaine was born at Longueuil on the 16th of September, 1850. He began his education under private tutors and completed his classical studies at St. Mary’s College under the direction of the Jesuit Fathers. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree at McGill University and was admitted to the bar in 1873. While taking up his private practice he began at the same time occupying himself with public affairs with success.

There are few men who, step by step, possessed more than he the rare gift of being always the man of his time and who at all times retained the favor of his friends. He made his debut in municipal politics as alderman for Hochelaga, and in 1879 became the mayor of that municipality, which honorary post he held until 1884. At this period the progress of Montreal was slow, it being the custom to retard rather than hasten her development. The town and city officers at that time were struggling along with inadequate acts and regulations. They were like the undeterred scientists of old who obstinately tried to solve the problem of squaring the circle although without the slightest vestige of success. New blood was needed and Hochelaga supplied the first infusion in the person of Mr. Préfontaine. When Hochelaga was annexed to Montreal Mr. Préfontaine became alderman of the Montreal council and president of the public works commission. The task which confronted him was not a small one. On the one hand he had to fight against a routine held sacred, and on the other hand against a majority which was absolutely neglecting the eastern part of Montreal.

In 1898 Mr. Préfontaine was mayor of Montreal and began to carry out his program of action. Nothing was neglected for the advancement of the city, and he employed to the utmost his legal acumen and ability in restoring Montreal to her rights. From that time he displayed a deep and abiding devotion to Montreal East which owes so much to him, his labors in this connection being the crowning achievement of his efforts. It was he who gave to the city the Viger railroad station, and this was in itself but a small matter when compared with the shipbuilding yards, the mammoth warehouses and thousands of habitations that he by his persistency won for the French region of the metropolis. He thought of everything; the street railway service, the electric lighting system, the street paving, all these bore the stamp of his personality. He was sometimes unjustly accused of lending himself to questionable deals but always emerged from these ordeals without a stain upon his character or a shadow of doubt remaining as to the entire justification of his actions.

He was the Haussman of the city. It was generally known that he was the friend of the working men and would defend their interests as his own. It was but natural therefore that the workingmen of Hochelaga were his best friends and his stanchest partisans. They were his standard bearers throughout the entire town and were the first who made possible his election to the magistracy of the city. Mr. Préfontaine lifted Montreal out of the old routine and after he was elected mayor all worked hand and glove with him in order to crown his work, and it is not short of the truth to say that a complete reorganization of the municipal autonomy took place.

Hon. Mr. Préfontaine at the time of his death had been in politics for thirty years. In 1875 he was elected member of parliament from Chambly to the legislature of Quebec and continued to represent that county from 1886 to 1896 in the Dominion parliament. In his early days he served as president of the Young Men’s Liberal Association and later as president of the Club National. He was always the man of the hour. His remarkable popularity, the wide prestige which he enjoyed in the liberal party and the financial world, his intimate knowledge of political and administrative affairs, all betokened him the foremost man in the province of Quebec and more particularly in the district of Montreal. He was actively interested in all the movements of his party; few were the counties which he did not visit during the campaigns, and he took part in all the important debates. From his debut he was always in the public eye. Men like him are always the first in all ranks of life. One sees him ceaselessly battling when vital interests are at stake. At the general elections of 1900 he was elected by a large majority for Maisonneuve and Terrebonne. At the time of his death he was representing Maisonneuve, which had elected him by a majority of twenty-five hundred votes. When the Hon. Mr. Tarte resigned from the Laurier cabinet Mr. Préfontaine was prevailed upon to accept the portfolio of marine and fisheries. It is to him that Canada owes the fine organization of this department and the excellent results obtained.

Let us recall what he wrote regarding this subject on the 21st of October in Le Soleil: “We receive every day confirmation of the happy news that the harvest of this year will surpass all hopes. In fact, everything indicates that it will be phenomenal. The Grain Merchants Association values for only the west the production of wheat at ninety-one and a half millions bushels; that of oats at sixty-seven millions of bushels; that of flax at half a million. On the other side the reports from Quebec and Ontario are excellent. There is no doubt that our exportations of agricultural products will this year largely exceed those of 1903, our maximum year, which amounted to one hundred and fifteen million dollars. These figures are so outstanding that they speak for themselves. They mean that the facilities of transportation will have to be considerable to ship all of this,—that is that the St. Lawrence route will be largely put in requisition to export our grain and in return, for the importation of articles sent in exchange. But they signify also that large sums of money will come into the treasury and that the St. Lawrence route will well merit its share. The St. Lawrence begins at the head of Lake Superior and goes as far as Belle Isle, I may say nearly to Newfoundland.

“One of my predecessors asked from Sir Wilfrid Laurier twenty-five million dollars for the single purpose of deepening the channel from Montreal to the Gulf. It is far from being completed. Since the channel was started we have not yet expended one-fifth of this amount and yet we can look backward with confidence and contemplate with pride the work accomplished. It is needless to give here the figures. Suffice it to say this is not a financial treatise but a statement to the people, telling them frankly that in less than five years we have created from nothing at Sorel, the national workshops of maritime construction, the most perfect, the best equipped, the best managed in existence in Canada and which would do credit to any other country. We have constructed the dredges and the apparatus necessary for digging and maintaining the channel at a desirable depth. The channel will be thirty feet in depth throughout almost its entire course. We have reasonably widened the curves wherever they were met. We have constructed signals and placed buoys to extend as far as the gulf and join with the channel. We have installed submarine bells and we are experimenting with a new electrical system for the direction of the vessels in the channel. We have made the channel between Montreal and Sorel as light at night as it is by day. We are now replacing floating fires with stationary fires. We have commenced and will continue with powerful vessels specially constructed to this end to make possible winter navigation and this trial, mark my words, will culminate in good results. That is as a matter of fact quite a goodly sum of finished work since Sir Wilfrid Laurier has come into power and, without boasting too much, since he has entrusted to your humble servant the portfolio of marine, so much decried by our good friends, the conservatives.

“Now, as far as professional progress is concerned, we can still cite without fear of criticism improvement of the law in regard to pilots who are now under control of my department, new conditions regarding more severe regulations, etc.; the revision of the law for the examination of captains and mates; the re-drafting of the law regarding the inspection of steamships; the creation of a competent tribunal of nautical inquiries; the establishment of navigation schools, and the organization of a scientific system of oceanographic and hydrographic observations. Here, in brief, between two viewpoints, we can, I believe, address our friends in order to show them in a new and authentic light the liberal work which has been done on the service of our grand maritime route. But you say in Quebec that with all this there still will be accidents on the river. This I cannot deny and no one regrets it more keenly than I. There will be accidents everywhere and these will happen in spite of all the precautions taken and at the moment when they are least expected. It is for this very reason that we call them accidents. Accidents happen on the canals, they will happen in mid-ocean and they might even happen in the port of Quebec if Providence so ordains, which I sincerely pray, not.”

At the outbreak of the Boer war Mr. Préfontaine gauged public feeling in Canada correctly and favored the contribution of men to the cause of the Empire and also favored the establishment of a Canadian navy. While maintaining offices in the city hall he displayed remarkable faculty for winning friends. It was said of him that no matter how bitterly opponents assailed him he never bore resentment. As years went by this trait actually made admirers out of those who had formerly been enemies. He was always ready to do a friendly act and was naturally of an optimistic temperament, being scarcely ever known to show a sign of dejection or low spirits. A belief in the possibilities of an undertaking always served as a stimulus to his intense activity, usually accompanied by the desired results.

In June, 1876, Mr. Préfontaine married Miss Hermantine Rolland, and unto them were born three sons: Rolland, a civil engineer in Montreal; Fernand, of the firm of Préfontaine & Drouin, architects of Montreal; and Adrien, now deceased.

Mr. Préfontaine died in Paris, France, December 25, 1905. At that time Mr. Lawrence A. Wilson said of his dead friend: “As the last candle lights were flickering out their little flames upon the gilded Christmas trees that had made so many young and old hearts happy, a cruel message, wrapped in thunder, reached us. A man had died: Yes! a big, big man in the fullest sense of the word. A generous friend he was always to the needful, irrespective of color, creed or nationality and one whom I have never known, during twenty years, to have harbored over night an ill feeling against his greatest political foe. When I asked him recently during a friendly conversation why he worked so hard to the detriment of his personal interests and particularly of his health, he replied, ‘My greatest pleasure is to be able to do something for my friends.’ He was a kind husband to his devoted but now sorrowing wife, a good father to his three bright boys, a solid friend to all those he trusted and a faithful, unflinching follower of his chief, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. That man was Raymond Préfontaine.”

The Montreal Daily Star editorially said of him: “Canadian public life has produced few men who would be more sincerely mourned by an army of personal friends than will the late Raymond Préfontaine. He was a man who was always bigger than his party, bigger than his numerous victories and broader in his sympathies than many a man who made more display of public spirit. A genuine liking for the big, generous man pervaded all classes of the community and was no small share of his strength in any political contest. His death comes at an exceedingly bad time for the country, just when he had taken up the problem of the St. Lawrence channel in real earnest and was bent upon giving us a clean bill of health. He has hardly been long enough in the federal field for the nation to learn to know him as he has long been known in this district. As a public man he has come in for not a little criticism. He was a candidate who stood fire well and was seldom irritated into replying with unwise petulance. Perhaps at times he displayed too great a faith in the financial recuperative powers of this city but after all is said and done, that was a generous fault. At this moment our people will only remember the attractive personality, the stanch British subject, the warm-hearted political leader who lies dead in the French capital.”

La Presse, whose editor, Mr. Dansereau, was a close personal friend of the late Hon. Raymond Préfontaine, after referring to the news of his death, continues: “We do not seek to hide our deep emotion, for he was counted among our oldest friends, and we were the last Canadians to grasp his hand before he embarked at New York on the steamer which took him across. Had he any presentiment? He was serious and pensive, nothing about him of the ordinary joy which is connected with the perspective of a short journey was shown in his manner. The distinguished deceased had eminent qualities, for he was a man of action and energy. He had done more in two years for the development and aiding of navigation than all his predecessors in the department since confederation. At least he has the merit of tracing a program that must not be laid aside. Life is ephemeral; fame matters little to him at this moment. But his family will have the consolation of a heritage more precious than fortune, that of his talent, his prestige, of his political and administrative worth.”