Background
Edward Oliver LeBlanc was born in Dominica on 3 October 1923.
government official politician
Edward Oliver LeBlanc was born in Dominica on 3 October 1923.
Attended primary school in Dominica, later he embarked on a period of self-education, obtaining the London Matriculation Certificate in 1948.
Between 1941 and 1953 LeBIanc was an agricultural instructor, and in 1944 he completed a course at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad. In 1953 he joined the Dominica Banana Association.
LeBIanc entered politics by securing election to the Vieille Case Village Board. He joined the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) and won a seat in the Legislative Council in August 1957. LeBIanc resigned from the Dominica Legislature to become one of the two Dominica members of the Parliament of the West Indies Federation in 1958.
After two years in the federal Parliament, LeBIanc returned to Dominica in I960 to assume leadership of the party. He led the DLP to its first victory in January 1961, winning 7 of 11 elective seats in the Legislative Council. He became chief minister and minister of finance. Surviving internal party turmoil, which resulted in ouster of the party’s founder and former leader, Phyllis Alfrey, in 1961, LeBIanc increasingly concentrated on constitutional reform. With the breakup of the West Indies Federation in 1962, he sought formation of a federation of the Little Eight Windward and Leeward Islands plus Barbados. When this plan proved impossible, LeBIanc led the Dominica delegations to a conference in London which paved the way for Dominica's Associated State status on March 1, 1967. The Dominica government took full responsibility for internal affairs of the colony, and Britain controlled only defense and foreign affairs. LeBIanc became the first premier. The DLP captured 10 of 11 elective seats in the Legislative Council in 1966.
Edward LeBIanc tendered his resignation from the Dominica premiership, the House of Assembly, and the DLP leadership on July 26, 1974.
As premier, LeBIanc brought about the inclusion of Dominica in the Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA) in 1968. As a result of internal turmoil, in 1970 the DLP split into two factions: the LeBIanc Labour Party and the Dominica Labour Party. LeBIanc’s faction swept the elections of 1970, winning 8 of 11 elective seats. After the elections, the two factions reunited as the DLP.
Poverty and underdevelopment were particularly depressing in Dominica. In the late 1960s, a Rastafarian movement patterned after the movement then flour¬ishing in Jamaica emerged in the colony, reflecting a growing rebelliousness by the black underclass.