Louis Stephen St. Laurent PC CC QC (French: [lwi sɛ̃ lɔʁɑ̃]; February 1, 1882 – July 25, 1973) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 12th prime minister of Canada from 1948 to 1957.

In September 1946, St. Laurent became secretary of state for external affairs and served in that post until two years later, when he became leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister, succeeding King who retired.

His government also oversaw an expansion of Canada's social programs, including the introduction of the registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) and an early form of Medicare termed Hospital Insurance.

In foreign policy, St. Laurent strongly advocated against communism and was an enthusiastic proponent of Canada joining NATO in 1949 to fight the spread of the ideology.

[3] St. Laurent's father, Jean-Baptiste, was a Compton shopkeeper and a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

[6] In 1907, St. Laurent gained some attention in Quebec after he made a move that was viewed unusual at the time: he put a priest and nuns on the witness stand and cross-examined them.

It was not until he was nearly 60 that St. Laurent finally agreed to enter politics when Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King appealed to his sense of duty in late 1941.

King had been a junior politician when he witnessed the Conscription Crisis of 1917 during World War I and wanted to prevent the same divisions from threatening his government.

St. Laurent agreed to go to Ottawa out of a sense of duty, but only on the understanding that his foray into politics was temporary and that he would return to Quebec at the conclusion of the war.

In 1945, St. Laurent supported a program of economic reconstruction and more social welfare, which consisted of federal-provincial cost-sharing schemes for old-age pensions and hospital and medical insurance.

In January 1947, St. Laurent delivered a speech at the University of Toronto, highlighting the need for an independent Canadian foreign policy that would not always rely on the United Kingdom.

In 1956, this idea was actualized by St. Laurent and his secretary of state for external affairs, Lester B. Pearson, in the development of UN peacekeepers that helped to put an end to the Suez Crisis.

These negotiations were successful, and on March 31, 1949, Canada annexed Newfoundland and Labrador, with St. Laurent presiding over the ceremonies in Ottawa as prime minister.

At one event during the 1949 election campaign, he disembarked his train and instead of approaching the assembled crowd of adults and reporters, gravitated to, and began chatting with, a group of children on the platform.

His stated desire was for Canada to occupy a social, military, and economic middle power role in the post-World War II world.

Under his leadership, Canada supported the United Nations (UN) in the Korean War and committed the third largest overall contribution of troops, ships and aircraft to the U.N. forces to the conflict.

When he returned to Canada, St. Laurent's personality and character appeared to slightly change; cabinet ministers noticed he showed signs of fatigue and indifference.

Author Dale C. Thomson wrote, "[the tour was] his greatest hour but it marked as well the beginning of his decline; as such, it was a turning point both for him and for Canadian politics.

"[3][19] It took taxation surpluses no longer needed by the wartime military and paying back in full Canada's debts accrued during the World Wars and the Great Depression.

Under this legislation, the federal government paid around 50% of the cost of provincial health plans to cover "a basic range of inpatient services in acute, convalescent, and chronic hospital care."

[31] St. Laurent's government also used $100 million in death taxes to establish the Canada Council to support research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

He also believed that immigration would create a sufficient tax base that would pay for social welfare measures that were established at the end of World War II.

In 1953, St. Laurent undertook the High Arctic relocation, where 92 Inuit were moved from Inukjuak, Quebec to two communities in the Northwest Territories (now Nunavut).

[37][38] The relocation was a forced migration instigated by the federal government to assert its sovereignty in the Far North by the use of "human flagpoles",[39] in light of both the Cold War and the disputed territorial claims to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

On numerous occasions, the government invoked closure in order to curtail debate and ensure that its Pipeline Bill passed by a specific deadline.

Western Canadians felt particularly alienated by the government, believing that the Liberals were kowtowing to interests in Ontario and Quebec and the United States.

[41] The uproar in Parliament regarding the pipeline had a lasting impression on the electorate, and was a decisive factor in the Liberal government's 1957 defeat at the hands of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, led by John Diefenbaker, in the 1957 election.

St. Laurent was encouraged by others to reach out to the CCF and at least four of six independent/small party MPs to form a coalition majority government, which would have held 134 of the 265 seats in Parliament—50.6% of the total.

With this in mind, St. Laurent resigned on 21 June 1957—ending the longest uninterrupted run in government for a party at the federal level in Canadian history.

"[45] In that same interview, St. Laurent acknowledged that the Pipeline Debate played a major role in his 1957 loss, stating, "Perhaps I didn't say as much as I should have; people do make mistakes you know.