Alphonse Verville

Alphonse Verville
Member of the Canadian Parliament
for Maisonneuve
In office
1906–1917
Preceded by Raymond Préfontaine
Succeeded by Rodolphe Lemieux
Member of the Canadian Parliament
for St. Denis
In office
1917–1921
Preceded by Electoral district was created in 1914.
Succeeded by Arthur Denis
Personal details
Born October 28, 1864
Côte-St-Paul, Canada East
Died June 20, 1930 (aged 65)
Montreal, Quebec
Political party Labour
Laurier Liberal

Alphonse Verville (October 28, 1864 – June 20, 1930) was a Canadian politician and trade unionist.

Born and raised in the Côte-Saint-Paul neighbourhood of Montreal, Verville was a plumber by trade. At the age of 18 he moved to Chicago and joined the International Plumbers' Union. He returned to Montreal in 1893 and worked to organize plumbers. He became leader of the plumbers' union in Montreal and in 1904 became president of the MTLC, Montreal's Trades and Labour Council.[1] Verville served as president of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada from 1904 to 1910.

Politically, Verville was an early advocate of the trade union movement running their own candidates for political office. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Labour candidate in a 1906 by-election in Maisonneuve, defeating a Liberal opponent, and was re-elected as a Labour MP in the 1908 and 1911 federal elections. Upon entering parliament he became a supporter of the Liberals and was often billed as a Liberal-Labour MP. In his re-election contests he was supported by the Liberals who ran no candidate of their own against him. In the 1917 federal election caused by the Conscription Crisis of 1917, Verville ran and was elected as a Laurier Liberal in the riding of St-Denis. He remained in the Commons until 1921. After nine years in retirement, he died on 20 June 1930 in Montreal, at the age of 65, following stomach surgery.

Notes

  1. ↑ CSN, CEQ 1987, p. 101

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