Robert Baldwin

However before LaFontaine could take up his seat Governor Sydenham died. In Canada East gerrymandering and Orange Order violence were used to prevent the election of Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine leader of the French reformers in Terrebonne outside Montreal. Robert Baldwin (May 12 1804 – December 9 1858) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine led the first responsible ministry in Canada.

Robert Baldwin (May 12 1804 – December 9 1858) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine led the first responsible ministry in Canada. Baldwin is also noted for resisting a decades-long tradition of Orange Order terrorism of political reform in the colony that went so far as to burn the Parliament buildings in Montreal in 1849.