Augustin-Norbert Morin

Morin was born in 1803 in Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, Lower Canada, son of Augustin Morin, a farmer, and Marianne Cottin, dit Dugal. He was the eldest of eleven children, of a family that had been in Canada for seven generations. The Morin family was not well-off. The young Augustin-Norbert owed his classical education to the local parish priest, Abbé Thomas Maguire, who identified him as a boy of exceptional talent and intelligence when Augustin-Norbert was learning his catechism. Abbé Maguire arranged for Morin's education at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, beginning in 1815.[1]

Morin grew to be a tall man, above average height, but he also developed rheumatism at a young age, which gradually grew worse as the years passed. He also had a diffident, retiring personality which masked his intellectual abilities and in some ways was ill-suited to political life. He had a talent for hard work throughout his life.[1]

Morin did not marry until quite late in life. In 1843, at the age of forty, he married Adèle Raymond, daughter of merchant Joseph Raymond, and sister of Father Joseph-Sabin Raymond, the superior of the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe. Another of her brothers, Rémi Raymond, was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada in 1863.[1][2]

After leaving the seminary, Morin worked as newspaperman in order to earn money for the study of law as a clerk in the office of Denis-Benjamin Viger, who in addition to being a well-recognised lawyer, was one of the leading figures in the nationalist Parti canadien. Morin also taught Latin and mathematics in order to earn money; Viger did not have a reputation of generosity towards his law clerks.[1][2]

In 1826, while still an articled clerk, Morin founded his own newspaper, La Minerve, which supported the policies of the Parti canadien. Within a month he had to stop publication due to lack of subscriptions, but he was able to sell it to a more experienced newspaperman, Ludger Duvernay. La Minerve became a major newspaper supporting the nationalist policies of the Parti canadien, which came to be known as the Parti patriote. Over the next decade, even while developing his legal practice and entering politics, Morin contributed articles on a regular basis to La Minerve, on a wide range of topics.[1][2]

Morin was called to the bar in 1828, and practised law in Montreal until 1836, when he transferred his practice to Quebec. By 1830 had become involved with provincial politics.[1][2]

Following the rebellion in Lower Canada, and the similar rebellion in Upper Canada (now Ontario), the British government decided to merge the two provinces into a single province, as recommended by Lord Durham in the Durham Report. The Union Act, 1840, passed by the British Parliament, abolished the two provinces and their separate parliaments, and created the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament for the entire province, composed of an elected Legislative Assembly and an appointed Legislative Council. The Governor General retained a strong position in the government.[6][7][8]

In the general elections in 1841 for the first Parliament of the new Province, Morin was elected unopposed in the Nicolet constituency. At first, he had been inclined to support the union of the two Canadas because it would help to create an alliance between the reform groups in the two provinces. He ultimately opposed the union because the Act created equal representation of the two regions in the new Parliament, in spite of Lower Canada's greater population. He campaigned on an anti-union platform. In the first major vote in the Assembly, he was a co-sponsor of a motion condemning the union, which was defeated but attracted the support of all but two of the French-Canadian members. During the rest of the first session of the Parliament, he was also a consistent opponent of the government of Governor General Lord Sydenham.[1][2][9][10]

On January 1, 1842, Morin resigned his seat on appointment to the district court for Rimouski, but he served on the bench for less than a year. The new governor general, Sir Charles Bagot tried to entice Morin to become the clerk of the Executive Council. Morin declined that offer, and Bagot instead suggested that Morin should be commissioner for Crown lands, an Executive Council position that required Morin to hold a seat in the Assembly. Morin accepted that offer. Bagot appointed the member for riding of Saguenay, Étienne Parent as the Clerk of the Executive Council, which vacated the Saguenay riding. Morin resigned from the court and was appointed Commissioner for Crown lands and a member of the Executive Council on October 13, 1842, as a member of the 1st ministry Reform ministry of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin. He was re-elected to Parliament, from the vacant Saguenay riding, in November, 1842.[1][11] Back in Parliament, continued as a member of the French-Canadian group. He supported Baldwin and Lafontaine a year later in the major dispute with the new Governor General, Sir Charles Metcalfe, where all the members of the Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry resigned, except for one minister, Dominick Daly.[12]

Morin threw himself into his work as commissioner, learning about agriculture himself, and improving agricultural education for farmers. He also considered infrastructure issues, such as roads and windmills. He personally acquired land and began to perform experiments with new agricultural methods, which he published in La Minerve and in American agricultural journals. He also founded new parishes north of Montreal: Val-Morin, Sainte-Adèle (from the name of his wife), and Morin-Heights all were begun under his auspices.[1]

Morin served as Joint Premier of the Province of Canada from Canada East along with his counterparts from Canada West Francis Hincks (from October 28, 1851, to September 11, 1854), and with Allan Napier MacNab (from that date until January 27, 1855).

He resigned from government due to ill health. However, Morin was named a judge in the Quebec Superior Court and he also took part in the commission which drafted a new civil code for Canada East.

Church of Notre Dame du rosaire, where Morin's funeral took place

Morin-Heights, Quebec, and Val-Morin, Quebec, which Morin help found, are named for him. He also helped found Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, which was named after his wife Adèle Raymond, the sister of Mgr Joseph-Sabin Raymond.

He died at Sainte-Adèle in 1865.

• 1st Parliament of the Province of Canada

• List of presidents of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montreal