Augustin-Norbert Morin (; October 13, 1803 – July 27, 1865) was a Canadien journalist, lawyer, politician, and rebel in Lower Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in the 1830s, as a leading member of the Parti patriote. Although he participated in the Lower Canada Rebellion, the British authorities concluded his conduct did not warrant a charge of high treason. After the Rebellion, he entered politics in the Province of Canada, eventually becoming joint premier of the Province. Retiring from politics due to health concerns, Morin was appointed to the bench. He was one of the commissioners who codified the law of Lower Canada, producing the Civil Code of Lower Canada which stayed in force for over a century.

Early life and family

Morin was born in 1803 in Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, Lower Canada, son of Augustin Morin, a farmer, and Marianne Cottin, dit Dugal. He was the eldest of eleven children, of a family that had been in Canada for seven generations. The Morin family was not well-off. The young Augustin-Norbert owed his classical education to the local parish priest, Abbé Thomas Maguire, who identified him as a boy of exceptional talent and intelligence when Augustin-Norbert was learning his catechism. Abbé Maguire arranged for Morin's education at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, beginning in 1815.

Morin grew to be a tall man, above average height, but he also developed rheumatism at a young age, which gradually grew worse as the years passed. He also had a diffident, retiring personality which masked his intellectual abilities and in some ways was ill-suited to political life. He had a talent for hard work throughout his life.

After leaving the seminary, Morin worked as newspaperman in order to earn money for the study of law as a clerk in the office of Denis-Benjamin Viger, who in addition to being a well-recognised lawyer, was one of the leading figures in the nationalist Parti canadien. Morin also taught Latin and mathematics in order to earn money; Viger did not have a reputation of generosity towards his law clerks.

Morin was also a hard worker, sitting on seven different committees, and regretfully advised Duvernay that he would not be able to produce as many articles for La Minerve. However, Morin was able to assist when Duvernay was imprisoned for articles he published in the paper, criticising the appointed Legislative Council. Morin presented a petition to the Assembly calling for Duvernay's release. There was also an episode in Morin's first term where he was accused of corrupt conduct in buying certain tracts of land. Morin resigned his seat and was promptly re-elected in the by-election, ending the criticism. He was re-elected to the 15th Parliament in the general elections of 1834. The Resolutions passed the Assembly by a strong majority. The Assembly then sent Morin and Viger, also a member of the Assembly, to London to explain the Resolutions and the political situation to members of the British government. Morin's work in London achieved strong praise from Papineau and the entire Assembly. When a warrant for his arrest issued, he took refuge in the woods near Saint-François-de-la-Rivière-du-Sud. He was arrested in October 1839 and held briefly, but the British authorities did not consider that a charge of high treason was justified. He was released without any charges.

In the general elections in 1841 for the first Parliament of the new Province, Morin was elected unopposed in the Nicolet constituency. At first, he had been inclined to support the union of the two Canadas because it would help to create an alliance between the reform groups in the two provinces. He ultimately opposed the union because the Act created equal representation of the two regions in the new Parliament, in spite of Lower Canada's greater population. He campaigned on an anti-union platform. In the first major vote in the Assembly, he was a co-sponsor of a motion condemning the union, which was defeated but attracted the support of all but two of the French-Canadian members. During the rest of the first session of the Parliament, he was also a consistent opponent of the government of Governor General Lord Sydenham.

On January 1, 1842, Morin resigned his seat on appointment to the district court for Rimouski, but he served on the bench for less than a year. The new governor general, Sir Charles Bagot tried to entice Morin to become the clerk of the Executive Council. Morin declined that offer, and Bagot instead suggested that Morin should be Commissioner of Crown Lands, an Executive Council position that required Morin to hold a seat in the Assembly. Morin accepted that offer. Bagot appointed the member for riding of Saguenay, Étienne Parent as the Clerk of the Executive Council, which vacated the Saguenay riding. Morin resigned from the court and was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands and a member of the Executive Council on October 13, 1842, as a member of the 1st ministry Reform ministry of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin. He was re-elected to Parliament, from the vacant Saguenay riding, in November, 1842.

Back in Parliament, continued as a member of the French-Canadian group. He supported Baldwin and Lafontaine a year later in the major dispute with the new Governor General, Sir Charles Metcalfe, where all the members of the Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry resigned, except for one minister, Dominick Daly.

Morin threw himself into his work as commissioner, learning about agriculture himself, and improving agricultural education for farmers. He also considered infrastructure issues, such as roads and windmills. He personally acquired land and began to perform experiments with new agricultural methods, which he published in La Minerve and in American agricultural journals. He also founded new parishes north of Montreal: Val-Morin, Sainte-Adèle (from the name of his wife), and Morin-Heights all were begun under his auspices.