Clifford Albert Lincoln (born September 1, 1928) is a Canadian politician who served as a member of the

Quebec National Assembly The National Assembly of Quebec (officially in french: link=no, Assemblée nationale du Québec) is the Legislature, legislative body of the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec in Canada. Legislators are called MNAs (Members ...

, a provincial

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minister and a member of the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The House of Common ...

. Lincoln was born in Mauritius to Francis Lincoln, a British colonial civil servant, and Régina De Baize. He studied insurance in Mauritius and in Cape Town, South Africa. He emigrated to Canada in 1958, settling first in Vancouver and then in Montreal, where he became an insurance company executive. He was first elected to the

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

as a member of the Liberal Party. When the Liberals formed government in

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, Lincoln was appointed Minister of the Environment by Premier

Robert Bourassa Robert Bourassa (; July 14, 1933 – October 2, 1996) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd premier of Quebec from 1970 to 1976 and from 1985 to 1994. A member of the Liberal Party of Quebec, he served a total of just un ...

. Lincoln and two other anglophone ministers resigned from cabinet in 1989, to protest the Bourassa government's language policy and its adoption of Bill 178, which invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Constitution to require French to be the dominant language on commercial signs. He campaigned for the leadership of the

Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' ...

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

. At the same time, he contested a by-election in the federal electoral district of Chambly. He lost the by-election to

Phil Edmonston Louis-Phillip Edmonston (26 May 1944 – 2 December 2022) was a Canadian consumer advocate, writer, journalist, and politician. Along with Andrew Scheer, he was one of the few politicians with dual American and Canadian citizenship to be electe ...

of the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; french: Nouveau Parti démocratique, NPD) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * t ...

and then withdrew from the Liberal leadership contest. He was elected to Parliament in the 1993 federal election in the district of Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis and was re-elected in Lac-Saint-Louis in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

. He served as parliamentary secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment from 1993 until 1996. He also served as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage from 1997 until 2004. As such he wrote a report on Canadian broadcasting, ''Our Cultural Sovereignty: The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting''; its recommendations were largely ignored by the government. Lincoln retired from politics at the 2004 federal election and was appointed Chairman of the Panel on Access to Third-language Public Television Services by the federal government. As of 2007, Lincoln is President of the Board of Directors of the

English Speaking Catholic Council English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

of Quebec. In December 2012, he released
Toward New Horizons
', a memoir of his life in politics.

References

Sources

* *

Clifford Lincoln's resignation speech, accessed December 26, 2005.

accessed December 26, 2005.
Remember the Lincoln Report
accessed December 26, 2005.

Electoral record (incomplete)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Clifford 1928 births Living people Liberal Party of Canada MPs Members of the Executive Council of Quebec Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec Quebec Liberal Party MNAs Anglophone Quebec people People from Plaines Wilhems District 21st-century Canadian politicians 20th-century Canadian politicians Canadian Catholics Mauritian emigrants to Canada