Elzéar Bédard (24 July 1799 – 11 August 1849) was a lawyer and a member of the

Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada The Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada was the lower house of the bicameral structure of provincial government in Lower Canada until 1838. The legislative assembly was created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The lower house consisted of el ...

. He later became a judge. He was born at

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

in 1799, the son of

Pierre-Stanislas Bédard Pierre-Stanislas Bédard (September 13, 1762 – April 26, 1829) was a lawyer, judge, journalist and political figure in Lower Canada. He was born in Charlesbourg in 1762, descended from French ancestors who had first arrived in New France ...

. Bédard received a typical education for the time which he completed in 1818. He then pursued a career in the priesthood but abandoned this and in 1819 articled to become a lawyer which took place in 1824. By 1830, he was involved in provincial politics and ran unsuccessfully in Kamouraska. He won a by-election in 1832 for Montmorency, a riding left vacant by Philippe Panet. He aligned himself with

Louis-Joseph Papineau Louis-Joseph Papineau (October 7, 1786 – September 23, 1871), born in Montreal, Quebec, was a politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the ''seigneurie de la Petite-Nation''. He was the leader of the reformist Patriote movement before the Low ...

's Patriote party program and in 1834 was the member who introduced the

Ninety-Two Resolutions The Ninety-Two Resolutions were drafted by Louis-Joseph Papineau and other members of the '' Parti patriote'' of Lower Canada in 1834. The resolutions were a long series of demands for political reforms in the British-governed colony. Papineau ha ...

, although likely he did not have a significant role in the preparation. He was the first mayor of

, (1833–1834), but lost the next election to

René-Édouard Caron René-Édouard Caron (21 October 1800 – 13 December 1876) was a Canadian politician, judge, and the second Lieutenant Governor of Quebec. He was born in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Lower Canada, the son of Augustin Caron, a well-to-do far ...

. A close friend and supporter of Lord Gosford, he was appointed a judge of the Court of King's Bench in 1836, an appointment that was called bribery by his radical adversaries in the Patriote party. Bédard was a political moderate at a time when a more extreme outlook was held by most politicians and this stance brought him some adversity and misfortune during his political life.

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* * 1799 births 1849 deaths Judges in Quebec Lawyers in Quebec Members of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada Mayors of Quebec City Lower Canada judges {{Quebec-mayor-stub