Joseph Girouard was a Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 notary

Civil law notary

Civil-law notaries, or Latin notaries, are lawyers of noncontentious private civil law who draft, take, and record legal instruments for private parties, provide legal advice and give attendance in person, and are vested as public officers with the authentication power of the State...

 and political figure. He represented Two Mountains in the Canadian House of Commons

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

 as a Conservative

Conservative Party of Canada (historical)

The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...

 member from 1892 to 1896.

He was born at St-Benoît

Mirabel, Quebec

Mirabel is a city in Quebec, Canada. It is an off-island suburb north-west of Montreal.Mirabel is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality and census division of Quebec, coextensive with the city of Mirabel. Its geographical code is 74.Mirabel's population was...

, Canada East

Canada East

Canada East was the eastern portion of the United Province of Canada. It consisted of the southern portion of the modern-day Canadian Province of Quebec, and was primarily a French-speaking region....

 in 1854, the son of Jean-Joseph Girouard

Jean-Joseph Girouard

Jean-Joseph Girouard was a notary and political figure in Lower Canada.He was born at Quebec City in 1794, of Acadian descent, and lived with his grandfather, Jean Baillairgé, after his father's death in 1800. When Baillairgé died in 1805, his mother became the housekeeper for a parish priest, who...

, and studied at the Collège des Sulpiciens at Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. Girouard qualified to practice as a notary in 1877 and set up practice at St-Benoît. He also acted as seigneurial

Seigneurial system of New France

The seigneurial system of New France was the semi-feudal system of land distribution used in the North American colonies of New France.-Introduction to New France:...

 agent for the seigneury of Lac des Deux-Montagnes for the Sulpicians

Society of Saint-Sulpice

The Society of Saint-Sulpice is a Catholic Society of Apostolic Life named for Eglise Saint-Sulpice, Paris, in turn named for St. Sulpitius the Pious. Typically, priests become members of the Society of St. Sulpice only after ordination and some years of pastoral work. Uniquely, Sulpicians retain...

. In 1879, he married Célanire, the daughter of merchant Daniel-Adolphe Plessis-Belair. Girouard was elected to the House of Commons in an 1892 by-election held after the death of Jean-Baptiste Daoust

Jean-Baptiste Daoust

Jean-Baptiste Daoust was a Quebec farmer and political figure. He represented Two Mountains in the Canadian House of Commons as a Conservative member from 1867 to 1872 and from 1876 to 1891....

.