Portrait of Speaker Joseph-Rémi Vallières
Joseph-Rémi Vallières was born 1787. After growing up in Quebec he became a lawyer and amassed a fortune in property and stock. He was a moderate Quebec voice within the nationalist Canadian party, though his opponents accused him of being fickle on nationalism.
He had a tempestuous rivalry with party leader Louis-Joseph Papineau.
Eventually he tired of fighting with his rival, and in 1829 he applied for a judgeship in Trois Riveieres. In 1842 he was appointed chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench in Montreal, and died there in1847. His portrait was painted by Théophile Hamel in 1854.