campaigning helped defeat the Duplessis provincial government in 1939. During the 1939 provincial election, Lapointe made many speeches in the province of Quebec, in which he argued that if Duplessis was to be re-elected, every French Canadian minister would resign from the federal cabinet, leaving it without a francophone voice. Having been a Liberal MP during the 1917 conscription crisis, Lapointe knew how much a new crisis like the last one would destroy the national unity that Mackenzie King had tried to build since 1921. Duplessis lost in a landslide to Liberal Party of Quebec leader Adélard Godbout, who sought to co-operate with the federal government. Death Lapointe died in office in 1941, in the midst of the war. King decided to appoint the reluctant Quebec leading lawyer Louis St. Laurent to the cabinet as the new minister of justice. Lapointe's son, Hugues Lapointe, served as a member of parliament from 1940 to 1957 and lieutenant governor of Quebec from 1966 to 1978. Further reading Betcherman, Lita-Rose. Ernest Lapointe: Mackenzie King's Great Quebec Lieutenant (2002). 435 pp. MacFarlane, John. Ernest Lapointe and Quebec's influence on Canadian foreign policy (U of Toronto Press, 1999) Neatby, H. Blair. "Mackenzie King and French Canada." Journal of Canadian Studies 11.1 (1976): 3+ Archives There is an Ernest Lapointe fonds at Library and Archives Canada. Electoral record See also Conscription Crisis of 1944 References Bibliography Biography from Library and Archives Canada 1876 births 1941 deaths Liberal Party of Canada MPs Laurier Liberals Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada Lawyers in Quebec Quebec lieutenants Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada) Canadian members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Université Laval alumni