Memorable Manitobans: Simon Amable Damien Bertrand (1849-1943)

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Simon Amable Damien Bertrand
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Businessman, MLA (1900-1903), civil servant.

Born at Chambly, Quebec on 24 August 1849, he came to Winnipeg in 1878 to represent a wholesale dry goods firm. He served as a Director for the Great-West Life Assurance Company from 1892 to 1901. One-time business partner of Horace Wilson, he was elected to the Manitoba Legislature at the December 1899 general election after being defeated in a February 1897 by-election. He resigned his seat less than a year later, to run for the federal seat of Provencher, which he lost to Alphonse Alfred Clement LaRivière.

A close friend of Canadian prime minister Wilfrid Laurier, in 1901 he was sent to the Yukon as superintendent of public works. In 1910 he was named first Canadian trade commissioner to Brazil. The provincial government of Quebec asked him to look after the administration of rural highways in the province in 1914. After this, he took charge of the provincial tourist information bureau at Montreal, in which capacity he continued until 1933.

He and wife Marie Georgine Boucher de Grosbois (1857-?) had five children: Emilienne Bertrand (1878-?), Marie Antoinette Florentine Bertrand (1883-1885), Henri Alexander Armin Joseph Bertrand (1885-1918), Joseph Thomas Alfred Stanislas Bertrand (1889-?), and Marie Bernard Janvier de Grosbois Bertrand (1891-?).

He died at Montreal, Quebec on 25 December 1943 and was buried in the Cote des Neiges Cemetery.

Sources:

Birth and death registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.

1901 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.

“S. A. D. Bertrand, Manitoba M.L.A. in early days, dies,” Winnipeg Tribune, 27 December 1943. [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B9, page 145]

Members of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba (deceased), Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.

We thank Oliver Bernuetz for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 14 January 2021

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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