daniel johnson, sr

Francis Daniel Johnson, Sr. (April 9, 1915 - September 26, 1968) was born in Danville, in the Province of Quebec, Canada. He was Prime Minister (premier) of the province from 1966 until his death in 1968.

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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 until its defeat in 1960 by the Quebec Liberal Party of Jean Lesage. 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-speking people, and the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Quebec Society. In 1965, his book entitled, galit ou indpendance (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". Under the same slogan, galit ou indpendance, 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 separatist Parti Quebecois for a brief period in 1985, and Daniel Jr as leader of the federalist Quebec Liberal Party for nine months in 1994.