Lawrence Cannon

Lawrence Cannon, PC (born December 6, 1947) is a Canadian politician from Quebec and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former Quebec lieutenant. In early 2006, he was made the Minister of Transport. On October 30, 2008, he relinquished oversight of Transport and was sworn in as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was defeated in the 2011 federal election by the NDP's Mathieu Ravignat. He was appointed as Canadian Ambassador to France in May 2012, and he served in that position until September 2017.

Cannon is the son of government lawyer Louis Cannon and Quebec television broadcast pioneer Rosemary "Posie" Power, and the grandson of Lucien Cannon and Charles Gavan Power. He is also the grand-nephew of Lawrence Arthur Dumoulin Cannon, a long-time Liberal politician and Supreme Court judge. He is the great-grandson^{[citation needed]} of Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, defender of Louis Riel and former Senior Minister in Laurier's cabinet. He is of Irish and French Canadian descent.

The extended Cannon family has had strong regional and national political influence in Canada for over a century and is considered to be influential as one of Canada's hereditary ruling class families, members having served in positions as lawyers, judges, Supreme Court judges, senators, ministers of defence, solicitors general, and members of parliament. They have had large influence in the national resource industries, as "barons" in the lumber industry particularly, as well as in broadcasting.

The most famous member of the family was Cannon's maternal grandfather, Charles "Chubby" Power, a confidante and Minister of National Defence for Air in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

Cannon grew up fluently bilingual; his father was francophone while his mother was anglophone. He also grew up alongside his older brother, Françis Cannon. He was educated at French speaking public junior and high schools.

He graduated in political science from the Université de Montréal in 1971; and then worked for Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa as correspondence secretary, leaving in 1976 for higher academic studies. Cannon received an MBA from Université Laval in 1979. He worked then in private sector as a financial analyst for Société de développement industriel until 1981; and then as head of Les Radiateurs Roy ltée from September 1981, to December 1985.

Cannon has been a long-time member of the Knights of Columbus.

Cannon then was elected in 1985 as a member of the Quebec Liberal Party to the National Assembly of Quebec for the provincial riding of La Peltrie; and then served as Parliamentary Secretary: notably to the Minister of Foreign Trade and Technological Development, and then Tourism. From October 1990 to January 1994 he was minister for communications, and implemented the 911 emergency system as well as the Privacy Act within Quebec. He was also active with the federal Liberals supporting Sheila Copps (who as well later became Deputy Prime Minister of Canada) in her attempt to win the federal 1990 Liberal leadership election won instead by Jean Chrétien.