Pierre De Sevigny, PC, OC, CD, VM, ED
Former Associate Minister of National Defence
Our 1963 Speaker was Pierre De Sevigny, Former Associate Minister of National Defence
Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny, PC, OC, CD, VM, ED (September 12, 1917 – March 20, 2004) was a Canadian soldier, author, politician, and academic.
Born in Quebec City, Quebec, the son of Albert Sévigny, the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada in 1916, he graduated from Université Laval and Columbia University. He briefly attempted to pursue a career in acting, even being given a screen test by MGM in 1935, but instead returned to Canada to work in real estate, construction and in the import-export business. He also wrote fiction for The Saturday Evening Post under the pen name Peter Maple
Sévigny enlisted in the Canadian army in 1939 and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1940.
During the D-Day invasion in June 1944, his Quebec artillery regiment was attached to a Polish division and subsequently took part in battles throughout Belgium and over the Rhine River into Germany.
Sévigny distinguished himself in the Battle of the Falaise Gap in August 1944. In the opening phase of the attack, Sévigny, then a captain, hurled grenades at an anti-tank gun and killed the entire enemy gun crew.
Two weeks later, Sévigny – promoted to major in the field – was trapped with 1,200 men on Hill 262, a hill surrounded by battle-toughened German Panzer and SS troops. Along with his Polish comrades of the 1st Polish Armoured Division, he denied access to Panzer divisions trying to break out of the Allied encirclement of the Falaise pocket. Only about 250 men survived, including Sévigny and another officer. The action resulted in the encirclement and capture of 50,000 German troops.
Later, in the Battle of the Rhine, Sévigny lost his leg. He was awarded the Virtuti Militari, the Polish equivalent of the Victoria Cross, and Poland's highest military decoration, as well as the Croix de Guerre medals from both France and Belgium, for his involvement in the battle at Hill 262.
After the war he wrote a book Face à l’ennemi about his experiences. It won the Prix Ferrières de l’Académie française in 1948. In 1965, he wrote his second book, This Game of Politics (McClelland and Stewart).
He was elected to the House of Commons in the 1958 election, representing the electoral district of Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, and served as Associate Defence Minister.
In 1967, he started teaching business administration at Concordia University, eventually becoming executive-in-residence in 1982. He retired in 1995, but returned two years later as a visiting assistant professor.
Sévigny was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1994.
