Daniel Johnson, Sr

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**The Honourable** **Daniel Johnson Sr.**
Image:Daniel Johnson Sr.jpg
Rank:	20th Premier
Term of Office:	June 16, 1966 – September 26, 1968
Predecessor:	Jean Lesage
Successor:	Jean-Jacques Bertrand
Date of Birth:	April 9, 1915
Place of Birth:	Danville
Date of Death:	September 26, 1968
Place of Death:	Manic 5
Spouse:	Reine Gagné
Profession:	Lawyer
Political affiliation:	Union Nationale

Francis Daniel Johnson, Sr. , PC (April 9, 1915 – September 26, 1968) was a Québécois politican and Premier of Quebec from 1966 until his death in 1968.

1 Profile
2 Elections as party leader
3 See also
4 External links

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Profile

Johnson was born in Danville, Quebec, Canada. He was the son of Francis Johnson, an anglophone journalist of Irish heritage, and Marie-Adéline Daniel, a Québécoise. He was raised bilingually but educated entirely in French.

He was first elected leader of the conservative Union Nationale party in 1961. The party had governed Quebec with Maurice Duplessis as its leader from 1935 to 1939, then was interrupted by Adélard Godbout's Liberal government before taking power again from 1944 until its defeat in 1960 by Jean Lesage's Liberal Party. The UN's defeat is seen as the beginning of the Quiet Revolution, which sought to overturn the domination of the Quebec economy by English-speaking people, and the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Quebec Society.

In 1965, his book entitled, Égalité ou indépendance (Equality or independence), made him the first leader of a Quebec political party to recognise the possibility of independence for Quebec. His position on the issue was ambiguous: as he wrote in his book, his position was for "independence if necessary, but not necessarily independence" (a reference to Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King's famous utterance in the WWII conscription debate).

Under the same slogan, Égalité ou indépendance, he was elected as premier of Quebec in 1966. He retained this position until his death in 1968. His term was, among other things, qualified by tensions with the Government of Canada over constitutional matters.

His sons, Pierre-Marc Johnson and Daniel Johnson, Jr also became premiers of Quebec: Pierre-Marc as leader of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois for a brief period in 1985, and Daniel Jr as leader of the federalist Quebec Liberal Party for nine months in 1994.

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