page_title: Adélard Godbout
section_title: Second Premiership
hierarchical_section_title: Adélard Godbout / Political career / Second Premiership
caption_attribution_description: English: Adélard Godbout, leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, in 1939, in Saint-Hyacinthe (Quebec), at the beginning of the 1939 Quebec provincial electoral campaign Français&#160;: Adélard Godbout à Saint-Hyacinthe en 1939 à l’ouverture de la campagne électorale. Photo Le Canada. Collection famille Godbout. [1]
context_page_description: Joseph-Adélard Godbout was a Canadian agronomist and politician. He served as the 15th Premier of Quebec briefly in 1936, and again from 1939 to 1944. He served as leader of the Parti Libéral du Québec.
context_section_description: World War II created the opportunity that Godbout needed to make a political comeback.  An early provincial general election was called in 1939 and federal Cabinet member Ernest Lapointe, the Quebec lieutenant of Prime Minister Mackenzie King, took the stump for Godbout.  He guaranteed that no one would face conscription if voters supported the Liberals.  Lapointe would die of cancer in 1941.
  Through the campaign, Godbout relentlessly repeated the formal promise : "The government will never declare military conscription.  I undertake, on my honour, weighing each of my words, to leave my party and even to fight against it, if even one French Canadian, before the end of the hostilities in Europe, is mobilized against his will under a Liberal government." Their promise would soon haunt Liberal politicians.
  In the meantime though, Godbout made a spectacular comeback.  He and 69 of his candidates were sent to the legislature. Godbout formed his second government, where he would serve as Premier and as minister of Agriculture.
  Under Godbout's premiership, the provincial government implemented a number of significant progressive legislations, laying the groundwork for the Quiet Revolution that would be implemented by the government of Premier Jean Lesage a couple of decades later.  In fact, the Liberal administration delivered many of the proposals made by Paul Gouin's Action libérale nationale in 1935.
  While Premier of Québec, Godbout published an article entitled "Canada: Unity in Diversity" (1943) in the Council on Foreign Relations journal. He asked, "How does the dual relationship of the French Canadians make them an element of strength and order, and therefore of unity, in our joint civilization, which necessarily includes not only Canada and the British Commonwealth of Nations, but also the United States, the Latin republics of America and liberated France?"
caption: Godbout launching the 1939 campaign in Saint-Hyacinthe
exif: {}