Patrick Tobin Asselin

Who was Patrick Tobin Asselin?

Joseph Patrick Tobin Asselin, known as Patrick Tobin Asselin, was a Canadian politician. A Liberal Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons for two terms in the 1960s, he returned to Parliament a quarter-century later to work as a security guard.

He was born on a farm in Bromptonville, Quebec in the Eastern Townships and was educated in Montreal at both English and French high schools. Asselin was descended from politicians on both sides of his family. He was the grandson of Edmund William Tobin, who had spent thirty years in the House of Commons, representing the same Quebec riding Asselin later represented. Tobin was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1930.

His father, Joseph-Omer Asselin, was chairman of Montreal City Council's powerful executive committee. His mother, Beatrice Tobin, was a Liberal organizer in the era of William Lyon Mackenzie King, and served as president of the Women's Liberal Association of Canada in the 1960s. Her two sons both served as Liberal MPs. She had been awarded an Order of the British Empire during World War II for her work in establishing an organization to help Canadian Prisoners of War.