April 1916 was a historic time in the province, as women finally earned the right to vote, but it wouldn't have happened if St. Albert's elected member had had his way.
April 1916 was a historic time in the province, as women finally earned the right to vote, but it wouldn't have happened if St. Albert's elected member had had his way.
"The place of women is in the home," proclaimed Lucien Boudreau, according to The Black Robe's Vision, the definitive two-volume history of St. Albert.
At the time, the former mayor was the St. Albert member of the Provincial Parliament, as the legislature was then called.
"The duty of women, dictated by Providence, was greater than that of men and if the time had come when it was necessary that the administration of the country should be shared by them it looked as if the men were becoming tired of their responsibility," he continued.
Boudreau was known as much for his small stature as his willingness to do whatever it took to get what he wanted. In Tony Cashman's book When Edmonton Was Young, there is an anecdote about how Boudreau competed against a political rival who was offering five-dollar gold pieces in exchange for votes. Boudreau countered by upping the ante to $10 gold pieces and calling his rival a cheapskate.
It was that kind of personality that earned the barely five-foot-tall man the nickname "Little Napoleon."
"He was one of the great characters in early politics in Alberta," said Cashman. "He was the last man standing when the legislature gave in and gave women the vote."
Boudreau, not liking to lose, complained that the women who had signed petitions in support of the cause had done so "without knowing what it was all about."
Knowing full well that he was on the losing side of the issue, he remained hopeful "that the women would do the best they could for [Alberta's] welfare without meddling in the public affairs of the province."
"When the vote was taken," Cashman continued, "his last words on the subject were 'You'll be sorry.' In the next election, he was re-elected. He said that that proved that the women didn't really want the vote or they would have voted him out."
It was widely thought that Boudreau had only voiced what so many other male legislators had silently felt, and that they had then congratulated him on his courage for speaking up.
Boudreau was a man firmly entrenched in St. Albert politics and business. He was a member of the first town council in 1904, became its mayor in 1909 right before he swiftly switched to provincial politics for 12 years.
Before all this, he had a real estate business and owned the Astoria Hotel before it burned down in 1912.
Despite the infamous gesture of refusing to support suffrage, Boudreau's prominence in the community gave the town enough reason to name Boudreau Road in his honour.
"Boudreau … he did it his own way," Cashman continued. "He was sort of the General Custer of Alberta politics. General Custer, he was up against a thousand howling Indians but then Boudreau had Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung glaring down at him."
Did You Know?
Every week this summer, reporter Scott Hayes will explore interesting but little known facts about St. Albert.
