Charles Parent

Who was Charles Parent?

Charles Eugène Parent was a Liberal party and Independent Liberal member of the Canadian House of Commons. He was born in Quebec City, Quebec and became a lawyer by career.

He was first elected to Parliament at the Quebec West and South riding in the 1935 general election then re-elected there in 1940. From 23 November 1944 until the 1949 election, Parent was not a member of the Liberal party but instead sat as an Independent Liberal. Parent and several other Quebec Liberal MPs had broken with their party as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1944, quitting the Liberal caucus in order to oppose the government's decision to deploy National Resources Mobilization Act conscripts overseas. Previously, conscripts had only been used for "home defence" and kept within Canada. He ran and was re-elected as an "Independent Liberal" in the 1945 federal election.

When the Quebec West and South riding was dissolved, Parent became the candidate at the expanded Quebec West riding which he won as an official Liberal candidate in the 1949 election. Parent lost to J.-Wilfrid Dufresne of the Progressive Conservative party in the 1953 election.