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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Lester B. Pearson

 
Lester Bowles ("Mike") Pearson (1897-1972) was Prime Minister of Canada from 1963 until 1968. He lead the Liberal Party to two minority victories in the elections of 1963 and 1965.

Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his work on forming the United Nations peacekeeping forces following the Suez crisis.

Pearson is responsible for some of the most important legislation passed by Parliament in the 20th century. His government brought in universal health care, and the Canada pension plan. It also adopted the new Canadian flag. Most of these reforms were supported in the House by the New Democratic Party under Tommy Douglas.1


1. Tommy Douglas was recently voted the The Greatest Canadian. Lester Pearson is #6 and his Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau, is #3.

6 comments :

Anonymous said...

He was PM until 1968, not 1963.

Anonymous said...

That explains why high-profile baseball, hockey, and soccer players receive millions and uni professors receive pittance ... it always has been (and may always) be about the popularity.

Chas

Anonymous said...

Also, one of the United World Colleges was named after him.
I studied in one of them, so I feel the need to do some shameless promotion for these amazing schools ;)

Linzel said...

What I find sad is that I cannot 'see' any recent great Canadians. Where have [they] we all gone? It is time to get things moving forward again. We're stagnating in our apparent, past, success. Time to move forward and update - I'm thinking education and health care here. Douglas helped begin and end the universal health care. Now it needs updating and support to prevent its erosion. Education needs to reform for a 21st century.

Anonymous said...

what your all wrong!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Lester Bowls Pearson invented Oxygen.