Editing Ernest Lapointe (section)

==King's cabinet minister and Quebec lieutenant==
[[File:Distinguished Canadians received by President Coolidge at White House. Interesting callers at the White House today were the Minister of Justice of Canada Hon. Ernest Lapointe (left) and the LCCN2016889115 (restored).png|thumb|left|alt=Justice Minister Ernest Lapointe with Canadian Ambassador to the United States [[Vincent Massey]], and Quebec Premier [[Louis-Alexandre Taschereau]] at the White House in 1927.|Justice Minister Ernest Lapointe with Canadian Ambassador to the United States [[Vincent Massey]], and Quebec Premier [[Louis-Alexandre Taschereau]] at the White House in 1927.]]
In 1921, Prime Minister [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] appointed Lapointe to his cabinet as [[Ministers of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard|minister of marine and fisheries]]. During his tenure as minister, Lapointe reduced tariffs. In 1924, Lapointe became [[Minister of Justice (Canada)|minister of justice]], and served in that position until the Liberals' [[1930 Canadian federal election|defeat at the polls in 1930]]. However, the Liberals under King returned back to power in the [[1935 Canadian federal election|1935 federal election]], and Lapointe once again regained his old post. From 1924 to 1930 as justice minister, Lapointe expressed his support for King's commitment to Canadian autonomy and accompanied him at the [[Imperial Conference of 1926]]. Lapointe also chaired the Canadian delegation in the discussions that led to the [[Statute of Westminster, 1931|Statute of Westminster]] in 1931.<ref name="LapointeBio" />

[[File:ErnestLapointe.jpg|175px|thumb|left|Lapointe, 1936]]

Lapointe served as King's [[Quebec lieutenant]] and was one of the most important ministers in Cabinet. King did not speak French; he relied on Lapointe to handle important matters in the province.  Lapointe gave a strong Quebecker voice to the cabinet decision, something that had not existed since the defeat of Laurier in 1911.<ref name="LapointeBio" /><ref>Conrad Black, ''Rise to Greatness: The history of Canada from the Vikings to the present '' (2014) p 520</ref>

In the late 1930s, Lapointe recommended that the federal Cabinet [[Disallowance and reservation in Canada|disallow]] several Acts passed by the Alberta [[Social Credit Party of Alberta|Social Credit]] government of [[William Aberhart]], arguing that Aberhart was attempting to grab too much power and encroach upon federal jurisdiction.

Lapointe did not recommend [[Disallowance and reservation in Canada|disallowance]] of the [[Padlock Act]] passed by the Quebec government of [[Maurice Duplessis]], fearing that doing so would only aid the [[Union Nationale (Quebec)|Union Nationale]] government.<ref name="LapointeBio" /><ref name=dc>{{harvnb|Creighton|1970|p=225}}</ref>

===Conscription issue===

Lapointe helped draft Mackenzie King's policy against [[conscription]] for overseas service in 1939, and his campaigning helped defeat the Duplessis provincial government in 1939. During the [[1939 Quebec general election|1939 provincial election]], Lapointe made many speeches in the province of Quebec, in which he argued that if Duplessis was to be re-elected, every French Canadian minister would resign from the federal cabinet, leaving it without a francophone voice. Having been a Liberal MP during the 1917 conscription crisis, Lapointe knew how much a new crisis like the last one would destroy the national unity that Mackenzie King had tried to build since 1921. Duplessis lost in a landslide to [[Liberal Party of Quebec]] leader [[Adélard Godbout]], who sought to co-operate with the federal government.<ref name="LapointeBio" />