Clifford Lincoln

Clifford Lincoln
Member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Louis Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis; (1993-1997)
In office October 25, 1993 – June 28, 2004
Preceded by	Robert Layton
Succeeded by	Francis Scarpaleggia
Member of the National Assembly of Quebec for Nelligan
In office April 13, 1981 – September 25, 1989
Preceded by	Riding Established
Succeeded by	Russell Williams
Personal details
Born	(1928-09-01) September 1, 1928 Mauritius
Political party	Liberal (federal) Quebec Liberal (provincial)
Occupation	Insurance Company Executive

Clifford Albert Lincoln (born September 1, 1928) is a Canadian politician who served as a member of the Quebec National Assembly, a provincial cabinet minister and a member of the House of Commons of Canada.

Lincoln was born in Mauritius to Francis Lincoln, a British colonial civil servant, and Régina De Baize. He studied insurance in Mauritius and in Cape Town, South Africa. He emigrated from the United States to Canada in 1958, settling first in Vancouver, British Columbia and then in Montreal, Quebec where he became an insurance company executive.

He was first elected to the Quebec National Assembly in 1981 as a member of the Liberal Party. When the Liberals formed government in 1985, Lincoln was appointed Minister of the Environment by Premier Robert Bourassa.

Lincoln and two other anglophone ministers resigned from cabinet in 1989, to protest the Bourassa government's language policy and its adoption of Bill 178, which invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Constitution to require French to be the dominant language on commercial signs.

He campaigned for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1990. At the same time, he contested a by-election in the federal electoral district of Chambly. He lost the by-election to Phil Edmonston of the New Democratic Party and then withdrew from the Liberal leadership contest.

He was elected to Parliament in the 1993 federal election in the district of Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis and was re-elected in Lac-Saint-Louis in 1997 and 2000. He served as parliamentary secretary to Sheila Copps, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment from 1993 until 1996. He also served as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage from 1997 until 2004. As such he wrote a report on Canadian broadcasting, Our Cultural Sovereignty: The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting; its recommendations were largely ignored by the government.

Lincoln retired from politics at the 2004 federal election and was appointed Chairman of the Panel on Access to Third-language Public Television Services by the federal government.

As of 2007, Lincoln is President of the Board of Directors of the English Speaking Catholic Council of Quebec. In December 2012, he released Toward New Horizons, a memoir of his life in politics.

Electoral record (incomplete)

1993 Canadian federal election: Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Clifford Lincoln	39,732	67.45
	Bloc Québécois	Guy Amyot	12,014	20.40
	Progressive Conservative	Nick di Tomaso	4,717	8.01
	New Democratic	Val Udvarhely	822	1.40
	Independent	Bill Shaw	618	1.05
	Natural Law	Ronald Bessette	559	0.95
	Libertarian	Jim Wiebe	191	0.32
	Commonwealth of Canada	Claude Brosseau	169	0.29
	Abolitionist	Michael Robinson	81	0.14
Total valid votes			58,903	100.00
Source: Parliament of Canada. Bill Shaw was a candidate of the unregistered Equality Party of Canada. Source:

Sources

• "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
• Clifford Lincoln – Parliament of Canada biography
• Documents on the Controversy Surrounding the Language of Commercial Signs in Quebec (Bill 178) December 1988 Clifford Lincoln's resignation speech, accessed December 26, 2005.
• Text of Bill 178, accessed December 26, 2005.
• Remember the Lincoln Report accessed December 26, 2005.