Laurent Louis "Larry" Desjardins (March 15, 1923 – February 7, 2012) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served as a member of the Manitoba legislature for most of the period from 1959 to 1988, and was a cabinet minister under New Democratic Premiers Edward Schreyer and Howard Pawley. Early life The son of Joseph A. Desjardins and Valentine Desautels, Desjardins was educated at St. Boniface College, St. Paul's College and the Cincinnati College of Embalming. Desjardins played professional football with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He was general manager of the St. Boniface Jr. Canadians and was a scout for the Montreal Canadiens. He was inducted into Manitoba’s sports hall of fame in 1990. He served in the Canadian navy during World War II. He worked as a funeral director, and was the President and Managing Director of Chapels, Ltd. He also joined the Knights of Columbus and the Canadian Council of Christian and Jews during the early years of his career. In 1944, he married Bernice McGuire. Desjardins began his political career at the municipal level, serving as an alderman on the St. Boniface City Council from 1951 to 1954, and also serving on the St. Boniface Hospital Board for a number of years. Provincial career In the Manitoba general election of 1959, he was elected to the Manitoba legislature in the riding of St. Boniface as a Liberal-Progressive. This was the year of Progressive Conservative Premier Dufferin Roblin's first majority win, and Desjardins joined ten other Liberal-Progressives in the official opposition. In 1961, Desjardins emerged as one of the leading parliamentary supporters of government funding for private and denominational schools. A Roman Catholic and a native French-speaker, Desjardins regarded such funding as necessary for redressing anti-francophone legislation that had been pursued by previous Manitoba governments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Roblin government took some steps on this front, but the issue was still unresolved by the 1970s. Despite the Roblin government's popularity, Desjardins had little difficulty being returned in the elections of 1962 and 1966 (the Liberal-Progressives had changed their name to the Manitoba Liberal Party in 1961). In the 1969 election, Desjardins faced stronger than usual competition from his New Democratic opponent, Kam Gajdosik, but won by 4210 votes to 2656. Crossing the floor The 1969 election was a watershed in Manitoba politics, and resulted in a dramatic shift in Desjardins' career. Under