Joseph Godéric Blanchet (June 7 1820 - January 1 1890) was a Canadian politician. He is the only person to serve as both Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons and Speaker of a provincial legislature.

A popular physician, Blanchet entered politics with his election as Mayor of Lévis Quebec (then Canada East) in 1845 at the age of 25. With the Province of Canada on military alert due to the American Civil War, Blanchet joined the militia and raised a batallion to defend the frontier against raids from the United States including the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 when he was in command of the militia on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

Blanchet was a Conservative and first ran for election to the legislative assembly in 1857 but was defeated. He supported Canadian Confederation as a means of defending British North America against possible attack by the United States.

He was concurrently elected in the 1867 Canadian election to the new Canadian House of Commons and Quebec Legislative Assembly and, under the law of the day, was allowed to sit in both legislatures at the same time.

He became Speaker of the provincial legislature and served in that position for two terms.

In the federal House of Commons he was named by Sir John A. Macdonald to a committee investigating the Pacific Scandal.

The federal election law was changed in 1874 to prohibit Members of Parliament from concurrently sitting in a provincial legislature. Blanchet chose to resign his seat in the federal House of Commons but after losing his seat in the Quebec legislature in the 1875 Quebec election he decided to run in a federal by-election in 1875 and returned to the Ottawa as MP for Bellechasse. In the 1878 Canadian election he ran in his old riding of Lévis. The election returned the Conservatives to power and Macdonald nominated Blanchet to be Speaker of the House of Commons.

Due to the tradition of alternating between English and French Speakers after each election he returned to the backbenches following the 1882 Canadian election despite a successful term as Speaker. In 1883 he resigned from Parliament in order to accept a position as Collector of Customs for the Port of Quebec. He died in 1890 at the age of 70.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online