DBWI: 50th of PM Duplessis' death

50 years ago Monday, former Canadian Tory PM Maurice Duplessis died of a massive stroke at 24 Sussex Drive at age 69. His decade-long rule caused an isolationist, though pro-American Canada, and a withdrawal from active participation in the Commonwealth.
 
Do you agree with the conventional wisdom that Duplessis' isolationism was responsible for the Second World War dragging on until 1952?
 
50 years ago Monday, former Canadian Tory PM Maurice Duplessis died of a massive stroke at 24 Sussex Drive at age 69. His decade-long rule caused an isolationist, though pro-American Canada, and a withdrawal from active participation in the Commonwealth.

Yea, thank god he's dead! I wish he hadn't even gotten control of the Premiership - look at all the problems HE caused.
 
Do you agree with the conventional wisdom that Duplessis' isolationism was responsible for the Second World War dragging on until 1952?

Duplessis wasn't in power when the war started in 1944. He only came to power in '48. Besides, the war dragging on as long as it did is the Yanks' fault. Had they not sat on their ass and watched as the Nazis conquered most of Europe, then we'd have got a complete victory instead of that half-assed peace and the 'Cold War'.

Under those circumstances, who can blame Duplessis for pulling us out of all of those foreign entanglements? We lost a quarter-million soldiers trying to kick the Nazis out of Belgium and France, and in the end we let the bastards keep the former and half of the latter! The Alliance lost four million soldiers during the Second World War. The Yanks lost six hundred thousand, and the Russians... And what for? We let the Nazis keep virtually all of what they grabbed. Not to mention that they were allowed to get the bomb too...

Perhaps turning inwards was not a good idea, but who can blames us?

Now if you go to Montreal, you'll find that they've named all sorts of stuff for him, starting with the airport*... The Quebeckers still love the guy.

You should have heard the Prime Minister's recent speech on Armisitice Day commereating Le Chef's** accomplishments. You can tell that Dumont is a Quebecker, and that he is cut from the same cloth as Duplessis was.

OOC: For the delayed *WWII think Shattered World, with a neutral Italy for flavour.

*Dorval International Airport, recently renamed Trudeau Airport. Here it is Duplessis International Airport...

**The Boss. I think that something like that is appropriate for a man who could be called authoritarian and borderline fascist. Who is also idolized by half of the country, and despised by nearly as many.
 
OOC: The simple equation is Maurice= Ferdie. Without extrajudicial activities to be sure, but otherwise quite similar. Even in bios. Arguably, his Liberal predecessors IOTL were small-time corporatists.
 
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