PHILLIPS, LAZARUS

PHILLIPS, LAZARUS (1895–1986), lawyer, businessman and member of the Senate of Canada. Phillips was born into an establishment Montreal Jewish family. A member of Montreal's uptown Jewish elite, he graduated from McGill University in 1918, after service in the Canadian Officers Training Corps. He served on the Headquarters Staff of the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force in 1918–19 before returning to Montreal to practice corporate law, first in the offices of sam jacobs , Liberal member of Parliament for Montreal's Cartier riding. In 1923 Phillips became a partner in the firm and was named King's Counsel in 1930. Phillips was also active in the Liberal Party, an able fundraiser and well connected in Ottawa. His one foray into electoral politics was ill-starred. He was the Liberal candidate in the hotly contested 1943 by-election in Montreal's Cartier riding, where he and CCF candidate david lewis were both defeated by fred rose , the Communist (Labor-Progressive) candidate. Phillips was active in various local Jewish philanthropies and served on the boards of numerous corporations. For the better part of 30 years Phillips was also chief legal counsel to Sam bronfman and was often the public face of the Seagram empire. In 1968 he was appointed a Liberal Party member of the Senate of Canada, the first Jew from Quebec appointed to the upper house. This was an appointment long coveted by Sam Bronfman and the Phillips appointment was something of a personal disappointment to Bronfman. (Gerald Tulchinsky (2nd ed.)