Réal Bélanger participates in wide-ranging consideration of Sir Wilfrid Laurier

On 17 November Réal Bélanger, directeur général adjoint of the Dictionnaire biographique du Canada/Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DBC/DCB), took part in a thoughtful discussion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841–1919) at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, to mark the 175th anniversary of his birth.

Mr Bélanger and historian Éric Bédard discussed the private life, political career, and legacy of Canada's seventh prime minister, which led to a lively exchange and engagement with the audience.

Source: Canada’s History

Réal Bélanger holds a doctorate in Canadian and Quebec political history. A retired professor from the history department at the Université Laval, he has been the directeur général adjoint of the Dictionnaire biographique du Canada/Dictionary of Canadian Biography since 1998. A specialist in biography, ideologies, and political parties, he has written several scholarly books and articles. For his work Wilfrid Laurier. Quand la politique devient passion, he won the Maxime Raymond prize in 1990. In 2012, as co-director of the DBC/DCB, he received, along with his colleague John English, the prestigious Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media: the Pierre Berton Prize. He is also the author of the biography Henri Bourassa: le fascinant destin d’un homme libre (1868–1914) (Québec, 2013), which in 2014 was awarded the prize of la Présidence de l’Assemblée Nationale du Québec (best book on Quebec politics in 2014). To date he has participated in conferences at the universities of the Sorbonne (Paris), Edinburgh, Oxford, and London, among others.