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Collectionneur d'art, aimant la lecture, les réceptions, le bon vin, le golf, la chasse et les affaires, un peu nonchalant, l’ex-ministre vit en dilettante. Il voyage beaucoup : les provinces canadiennes, la France, la Belgique, la Nouvelle-Angleterre.
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Turgeon’s years in the upper house were happy ones. An art collector who enjoyed reading, receptions, good wine, golf, hunting, and business, the easy-going former minister lived the life of a dilettante. He travelled a good deal in Canada, France, Belgium, and New England. His oratorical skills, his charm, his “aristocratic distinction and his urbanity,” as Le Soleil would note on 14 Nov. 1930, met with success wherever he went. Turgeon cut a figure as a great lord and, thanks to his annual salary of $5,000 (in 1930) and the money his property is thought to have brought him, he became a philanthropist. For example, he gave $1,000 to the Collège de Lévis and contributed to the fund for erecting historical monuments to Samuel de Champlain* and Octave Crémazie*, among others. When Hector Fabre* died in 1910, Turgeon’s name was put forward for the post of Canadian high commissioner in Paris, but Philippe Roy, a senator from Alberta, was chosen instead. It is believed that in 1911 he wanted to succeed Sir Charles-Alphonse-Pantaléon Pelletier* as lieutenant governor of Quebec, but Parent, who was still influential, opposed the appointment. In 1917 he was rumoured to be moving to federal politics.
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