Fulgence Charpentier
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Fulgence Charpentier (June 29, 1897 - February 6, 2001) was a French-Canadian journalist, editor and publisher.
Born in Ste-Anne-de-Prescott, Ontario, Charpentier's career included diplomatic, political and bureaucratic positions, but his first love had been journalism ever since he began his reporting career at Montreal's Le Devoir in 1915, during which he earned $20 a week.
Charpentier began covering Parliament for Ottawa's Le Droit (the city's largest newspaper) in 1922. He got the job because his father built Le Droit's first offices. The newspaper sent him to law school in Toronto for one year before he began his parliamentary reporting. Charpentier was the longest-serving member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. His early stories on the then-unilingual English environment of Parliament were believed to be instrumental in getting federal authorities to increase the visibility of French in Canada. Over the course of his career, Charpentier also wrote for Montreal's La Presse and Quebec's Le Soleil.link title He was also head of the French section of the Canadian Censorship Branch through most of World War II, assuming full control of the Censorship Branch in January, 1945, when chief censor Wilfrid Eggleston resigned. He was appointed editor-in-chief of Le Droit following his diplomatic career in 1968 at the age of 71. His resume included serving as a media spokesman for ambassador Georges Vanier in Paris and working as a diplomat from 1946 until 1968 in some francophone African nations and South America. While serving in Africa, Charpentier met Dr. Albert Schweitzer and became an advocate for his work.
Charpentier was still writing weekly columns on his trusty typewriter for Le Droit until 1999, when he had to stop due to chronic bronchial pneumonia at the age of 101. The Canadian Parliamentary Press gallery held a celebration for him shortly after Charpentier's retirement.
In 1978, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Officer in 1998.
