The great entrepreneurs of yesteryear | The great French-speaking financier

Quebec did not wait for the Quiet Revolution to see the emergence of great Francophone entrepreneurs. This summer, we present to you some of them, whose exploits span from 1655 to the beginning of the 20th century.^e century. Today: Rodolphe Forget.

Marc Tison
The Press

He was nicknamed “the little Napoleon of Saint-François-Xavier Street”, where the Montreal Stock Exchange stood, of which he was president from 1907 to 1909.

It was The Wizard of Financethe magician of finance, according to an English-language publication from the same period.

It led to the turn of the XX^e century the largest brokerage house in Canada, which bore his surname.

his beginnings

Rodolphe Forget was born in Terrebonne in 1861, the son of a modest lawyer.

The only boy of six siblings, he took a commercial course at Masson College, which was prematurely interrupted by the fire that destroyed the college in 1875.

Barely 15 years old, he began an apprenticeship at the brokerage firm LJ Forget et Compagnie, which his uncle Louis-Joseph, an extremely rare Francophone in this milieu, had founded in 1876.

“For 20 years, Maison Forget was the only French-Canadian house on the square,” writes Madame Francœur, alias Ernestine Goulet, in her memoirs published in 1928, which recount her years of experience for Maison Forget. First and for a long time only female shorthand typist in this Anglo-male environment, she was known as Forget’s Madam.

LJ Forget’s clientele extended from Gaspésie to Saskatchewan. Even rural people in the Montreal area knew the broker. Two “rural customers” once asked, in the heart of Old Montreal, where was “the place where we sell shares of little tanks,” says Ms. Francœur.

His proofs

Armed with a power of attorney granted to him by his uncle while he was traveling in Europe, Rodolphe had in his absence carried out a series of transactions as audacious as they were fruitful.

“Weren’t we talking about $40,000 all at once? And profits of more than $80,000 for the period of his mandate: barely three months? says Madame Francoeur.

The young wolf was admitted as a partner in 1890.

“It was not unamusing, as well as flattering for us, to see this young French Canadian […] lead all his English colleagues by finger and eye and, behind them, their upscale clientele, ”adds the shorthand typist.

Because LJ Forget had become the largest brokerage firm in Canada. In 1895, Louis-Joseph and Rodolphe between them carried out 57% of the transactions of the Montreal Stock Exchange, notes Christian Harvey, in his biography of Rodolphe Forget published in October 2021.

But already, the Forgets are taking a close interest in the administration of the companies in which they invest, directly or on behalf of their clients.

electrifying

As early as 1890, Rodolphe had begun to acquire shares in the Royal Electric Company, created six years earlier, which had held the major street lighting contract in Montreal since 1889. In 1899, the Forgets and a few associates controlled the company, of which Rodolphe was president.

This is an opportunity for him to deploy all his energy. He had the bright idea of ​​merging the Royal Electric Company and the Montreal Gas Company, headed by Herbert Samuel Holt.

Rodolphe, supported by his uncle, succeeded in concretizing in 1901 the formation of the Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company, chaired by Holt and of which he became second vice-president. The creation of Rodolphe Forget will be nationalized in 1944 under the name Hydro-Québec.

Pitfalls

In 1894, a group of investors led by Forget had taken control of the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company, whose steamers mainly traveled the St. Lawrence.

To support and extend the company’s tourist activities, Rodolphe had his Tadoussac hotel enlarged and in 1899 launched the construction of the Manoir Richelieu.

Seduced by the beauty of the region, the financier had a sumptuous summer residence built in Saint-Irénée in 1901 (destroyed, but perpetuated today by the Domaine Forget music academy). It was in Charlevoix that he ran for the Conservative Party in 1904.

During his victorious campaign, he undertook to build a railway between Quebec and La Malbaie.

The Quebec and Saguenay Railway, which was to have a capital of 1 million dollars, was incorporated for this purpose in May 1905.

But the geographical obstacles are considerable and the company is struggling to raise capital.

After several refusals, in 1911 he obtained authorization from the federal government to found a Canadian bank supported by French capital, the International Bank of Canada, which invested in the project.

After a successful start, CIB’s momentum was shattered in 1912 by a power struggle between Canadian and French investors, combined with a campaign by its political adversaries. Frightened, French investors are withdrawing. At the end of 1912, the BIC was swallowed up by the Home Bank of Canada.

A life

Their visions diverging more and more, Rodolphe Forget left his uncle’s firm in 1907 and opened his own brokerage firm in Montreal, with a branch in Paris.

Over the years, he played a fundamental role in the creation or merger of multiple companies, while pursuing a discreet political career.

As much as financiers, Rodolphe has philanthropic outbursts. He decided to support the reconstruction of Notre-Dame Hospital during a site visit. Christian Harvey estimates his donations to the hospital totaled $400,000 during his lifetime, or more than $6 million in today’s dollars.

This life suddenly ended at the age of 57, on February 19, 1919. He had caught a cold a few weeks earlier during a visit to Baie-Saint-Paul.

His daughter, Thérèse Casgrain, had a remarkable career dedicated to social justice and was the instigator of women’s suffrage in provincial elections. This dynamism in commitment, she said, had been inspired in her by her father, whom she admired deeply and who “had a preponderant influence” in her life.

The Charlevoix railway line was put into service on 1^er July 1919. She is still in office.