April 24th, 2008

Filed under:
Canada, History
9 Comments »

Has a Canadian Government Official Ever Been Assassinated?

I’ve been to Moscone Center in San Francisco a few times. I only learned a couple of weeks ago that it was named after George Moscone, former mayor of San Francisco. Along with city supervisor Harvey Milk, he was killed by a former, disgruntled employee.

I was talking to somebody about Moscone at Web 2.0 Expo yesterday. During our conversation, I wondered out loud whether a Canadian government official had ever been assassinated on domestic soil. I did a little searching, and couldn’t find anything. Can you think of anybody?

UPDATE: D’oh. How could I forget the October Crisis? Thanks to Andre for reminding me. Thinking back, I don’t think I ever studied this bit of history in high school. And I took no Canadian history courses in university. Still, I hang my head in shame, eh?

Tags: , , ,

Comments: 9 Responses so far

Andre
April 24th, 2008
11:04 am

One of Quebec city’s bridge is named after Pierre Laporte. He was a Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour when he was abducted and killed during the 1970 October crisis.

[Reply]

Colleeny
April 24th, 2008
11:33 am

doh… Andre beat me to it. Piere Laporte was killed during the FLQ crisis.(Front de libération du Québec)

[Reply]

Brent
April 24th, 2008
12:20 pm

Google “canadian assassination” - first two hits are for Thomas D’Arcy McGee. He was an MP assassinated way back in 1868 (didn’t take long for Canada’s first!).

The wiki article mentions that the only other political assassination was that of Laporte.

[Reply]

Matt
April 24th, 2008
12:29 pm

Brent beat me to it with D’Arcy McGee.

Forever immortalized by the Ottawa pub that bears his name…a favourite haunt of Hill staff and politicos that sits within sight of where McGee was killed.

[Reply]

Miranda
April 24th, 2008
1:06 pm

Pierre Laporte is also remembered in the name of the secondary school that is the “feeder school” for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.

[Reply]

Mike K.
April 24th, 2008
1:45 pm

Beaten to the D’Arcy McGee reference! Drat!

Ah… D’Arcy Mcgee’s… I spent a lot of time there when I lived in Ottawa. I just checked their website and it looks like they’ve opened up a pub in Tempe, Arizona. Odd.

[Reply]

Ann Torrence
April 26th, 2008
5:23 pm

If you like documentaries, Netflix the “Life and Times of Harvey Milk” and you will never think of Twinkies i the same way again.

[Reply]

Jack Ruttan
April 27th, 2008
7:58 am

Louis Riel was elected 3 times to the House of Commons, but according to this Wikipedia article, never assumed his seat. Do we count state assassinations?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel

[Reply]

JohnB
April 27th, 2008
7:18 pm

George Brown — though he was in the private sector when he was shot and it had nothing to do with politics but he still meets (if only just) your criteria.

[Reply]

Add a comment