(13 Aug. 1909-11 Dec. 1982), school inspector. Born at Curran, Ont. He attended secondary school at Sturgeon Falls and Embrun, Ont. Part of his training to be a teacher was at the model school, Vankleek Hill, 1926-1927. Laurier Carrière obtained his baccalauréat from the University of Ottawa (1936), and then from the University of Montreal his baccalauréat en pédagogie (1942), licence en pédagogie (1946), and doctorat en pédagogie (1952). In his earlier years, he taught at Curran, Rockland, Sudbury, and Ottawa. He was an Ontario school inspector in the Sudbury region 1937-1943, in the Cornwall region (which covered SDG) 1943-1956, and in the Ottawa region 1956-1970. In 1972, he became president of the Ontario government’s Conseil supérieur des écoles de langue française. In 1954, he was made a Chevalier of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. (Le Droit 30 Nov. 1954) L’école catholique Laurier-Carrière, which is an elementary school at Glen Robertson, GC, and l’école élémentaire catholique Laurier-Carrière, at Nepean, Ont. are named after him.
His thesis for his doctorat en pédagogie at the University of Montreal, on the basic French vocabulary of Franco-Ontarian schoolchildren, is based on his researches in the bilingual schools through the province, and is well known. He was the author also of more than a dozen textbooks and school manuals. One of the later of these was a history, Les Français dans les Pays d’en Haut (Toronto: McGraw Hill Ryerson, 1981; pp. 308, with maps and many illust.), which was approved in 1982 for use in Ontario schools for intermediate history and contemporary studies. It ends with the year 1763, well before the usual narratives of GC history begin, and indeed it has no material directly relating to the GC area. He had the reputation of being a dedicated and highly effective promoter of bilingual and francophone schools throughout the province. In a tribute quoted in Le Droit 5 Dec. 1962, it was stated that during his thirteen years in the Cornwall region (SDG) as inspector, he quadrupled the number of bilingual schools and laid the groundwork for making Alexandria a separate region. He received an honorary degree of docteur en éducation from the University of Ottawa in 1973, the year preceding his retirement. He died in Miami, Florida. In the obituary (1945) of another school inspector, J. W. Crewson, “Laurier Carrière Separate School Inspector,” is listed among those attending the funeral.
Laurier Carrière collection, Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française, Université d’Ottawa: includes valuable newspaper clippings (portrait) * biog. sketches: aforementioned collection; Charles Dufresne et al., Dictionnaire de l’Amérique française: Francophonie nord-américaine hors Québec (1988) 73; Répertoire des ressources franco-ontariennes 1978 34 * Senior & Marin: index