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The Honourable Allan  Lawrence

This obituary is protected by copyright by MacCoubrey Funeral Home Limited. Proudly serving Northumberland County in the province of Ontario, Canada. All rights reserved.

The Honourable Allan Lawrence

November 8, 1925 - September 6, 2008

The Honourable Allan Frederick Lawrence, P.C. Q.C. L.S.M., 1925 - 2008 - On his own terms, at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, surrounded by his family. Beloved husband of Moira Patricia (McGuffin), loving father to Sean (Esther Shipman) and Alison (Brian Young) and devoted grandfather of Declan Lawrence and Emma Healey. Predeceased by his brother Kenneth and sister Marguerite (Allen). The youngest son of Frederick Charles Lawrence and Elizabeth (Ballantyne), Allan was born and bred in downtown Toronto, educated at Huron Street and Brown Public Schools and Jarvis Collegiate. He lied about his age and left Jarvis to enlist as an Able Seaman in the Canadian Navy, serving in the North Atlantic from 1944-1945. After leaving the Navy Allan obtained a BA from Victoria College, U of T, and graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1954. For 15 years he practiced law with the firm of McLaughlin May and Soward. He first ran for public office provincially in 1958, during the Leslie Frost era, in the downtown Toronto Riding of St. George, which included the neighbourhood where he grew up, becoming at the time the youngest ever Member of the Provincial Legislature. Provincially he served as Minister of Mines (and later as the first Minister of Northern Affairs), Attorney General and Minister of Justice. During this period he was also a member of the Board of Governors for Central Hospital for over 30 years. He ran for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in 1971, losing to Bill Davis by 44 votes. After leaving provincial politics, Allan and Moira moved to Fleetwood, Ontario, their home for 25 years. In 1972 he was elected Member of Parliament for the Riding of Northumberland-Durham. Federally he served as Solicitor-General of Canada and as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in Joe Clark's government, and was later Canadian Chair of the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board of Defence and a United Nations delegate on justice issues. He was also active as the Canadian Delegate to the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union, the North Atlantic Assemblies, the NATO Defence Tours, and was a charter member and former Treasurer of the International Democratic Union. After retiring from public life in 1988 Allan devoted much of his time to work with the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Life Bencher, work which continued until this day, and in 2001 was awarded the Law Society Medal in recognition of his outstanding service to the legal profession. On moving to Cobourg in 1999 Allan gave his time as a director of the Northumberland Art Gallery and in work for the Northumberland Hospital Fundraising Campaign, but the work dearest to his heart was as the Chair of the Millennium Task Force at St. Peter's Anglican Church. In 2005 he was awarded the Churchill Society Award for Excellence in the Cause of Parliamentary Democracy. Despite Allan's many and varied public accomplishments he was above all a family man, and he and Moira were true partners in every sense of the word. They celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary on September 1st. Service to be held at St Peter's Anglican Church, King Street East, Cobourg, on Friday, September 12, 2008 at 11 a.m. Private family interment at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the St. Peter's Church Building Fund. Condolences received at www.MacCoubrey.com.