René Lévesque. Marguerite Paulin
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give a hoot about the gossip.
To be witty or provoke people, René Lévesque considered himself a Yankeebécois. He liked the U.S., was fascinated by its history, its people, its geography. As soon as he had a chance, he would rush to the Atlantic coast where the ocean and scenery reminded him of his childhood in the Gaspé. Far from being a threat, he saw the United States as a democracy whose political institutions protected against excess. He admired the great dream of equality held by the founders of the American nation and personified by presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was his hero. The New Deal slogan, We have nothing to fear but fear itself would serve as the point of departure for his sovereigntist manifesto Option Québec. For Lévesque, Europe was far away. On the other hand, America was on the same continent. For better or for worse. He was also thrilled, at the beginning of his mandate, to receive an invitation to give a talk to members of the Economic Club of New York. Robert Bourassa had had to wait three years before being extended the same privilege! But Lévesque was not taken in by the honour: the Wall Street financiers seemed quite impatient to meet the leader of a party that wanted the separation of Quebec.
René Lévesque worked on his speech until late in the night, seeking the right idea, the words that would strike a chord with his hosts. He scratched out a sentence that he had left unfinished. No one else was allowed to look at his speech. When it came to explaining his ideas, he once more became the journalist of the program that had made him famous. René Lévesque forever remained the star of Point de mire.
Before leaving for New York, those accompanying him insisted on reading his speech. “We have to modify certain expressions, nuance things.” When the premier heard of this order, he categorically refused to change so much as a comma. He refused to address the bankers of the Economic Club any differently from the way he had always addressed Quebec voters. On January 24, an airplane landed on a private field in New Jersey, with the Quebec delegation on board. The next day, the Quebec premier was to meet powerful America, the big boys on Wall Street. René Lévesque was nervous and impatient. He had to prove that his government was a credible player in the eyes of the most imposing empire in the world, to show that the Parti Québécois could hold its own on the North American political scene. There was a full schedule of meetings. In a few hours, he would meet about twenty lenders holding millions of dollars, investors that he had to convince. Lévesque grumbled to himself: “If it were only that!” In the evening, receptions and official handshakes would follow. His personal hell.
“Do they all think the same thing?”
They were rebroadcasting the program in which journalists analysed the premier’s visit to the Economic Club.
René Lévesque had committed the error he should have avoided. He had given a disappointing speech! It was the wrong way to speak to the Americans. He turned off the television, lit a cigarette. Were they right in reproaching him for having drawn a parallel between the sovereignty of his country and the thirteen American colonies’ struggle for independence? “It was an awkward comparison,” Claude Morin remarked to him. “I said to change certain paragraphs.” Lévesque was not the type to blame his blunders on others. “Everyone knows that I write my speeches alone.” He remained convinced that he was right to mention 1776. Even if the historical context was different from Quebec’s, he thought, the people aspiring to freedom displayed the same courage. Drawing inspiration from historian Alexis de Tocqueville, Lévesque maintained that Quebecers were hostage to a political system unfavourable to them. Certainly the parallel was awkward, but he had to find an image for his audience that would hit home. He had managed to shake them up.
“There were one thousand six-hundred guests in the Hilton Ballroom; I’ll never believe that they’re all as fanatical as the Toronto clique.”
Monday morning at eight o’clock, Lévesque was at his Quebec City office before the others. The project he was most afraid of was the thorny language law that had to be passed as quickly as possible. He feared that the anglophone community and its representatives who moved in the same circles of high finance would band together against his government. A language law! Of all the Péquistes, Lévesque was one of the most reticent to regulate such a touchy issue. Even though he wished Quebec to be as French as Ontario was English, he wanted anglophones to keep their institutions and their rights. Voting on a language law was putting a bandage on a wound rotting away inside. “I want Quebec sovereignty so as to put an end to these quarrels senselessly dividing us.”
Archives nationales du Québec à Montréal/E6, S7, SS1, P771944, #16
René lévesque opens the Heritage Fair in Longueuil in 1977.
On the night of February 6, Corinne, on the verge of tears, cried out: “René has just killed a man!”
The accident occurred on Cedar Avenue. Suddenly, in front of him, he saw headlights and a stopped car. A young man was gesturing, signalling for him to avoid something. “What is this nutcase doing here?” Lévesque asked, accelerating. So as not to hit him, he swerved awkwardly to the left. The wheels of the car ran over a body. There was a man lying on the ground – a body on the slippery pavement. Lévesque was convinced that he’d killed him.
The victim, Edgar Trottier, was in his sixties and had no fixed address. On top of everything else – a homeless man! Even though they recognized the premier, police officers showed no favouritism and asked the usual questions. Had Lévesque been drinking too much? Had he made an error in judgment? Had he been absent-minded? Had he been wearing his glasses?
After the euphoria of the November victory, he plummeted to the depths of despair. For a moment, Lévesque thought he was finished. “Should I resign?” This affair contained all the elements of a big scandal. Already, rumour mongers were stressing the fact that the premier had not been alone in the car, but “had been accompanied by his personal secretary.” Such innuendo was false. While the English-language press deprecated the premier, the francophone media took pity on him. It wasn’t his fault. What was a pedestrian doing on the pavement, anyway? And what about the boy blocking the road, had he done something wrong? In surveys, the majority of respondents accepted the police report. Lévesque had not had too much to drink.
“You’re lucky this accident happened at the beginning of your mandate; you’re still at the honeymoon stage with journalists,” a counsellor remarked to him.
Lévesque could have done without this kind of sympathy. He just wished he’d never lived through such a tragedy.
That Wednesday morning the atmosphere in the bunker was strained. The cabinet was discussing a project that Doctor Laurin had dreamed up in secret with specialists on the issue. The cover of this thick file irritated René Lévesque: the hand placing an acute accent on the word “Québec” reminded him of someone slapping the fingers of an insubordinate. From the moment the text was presented, the ministers were at loggerheads: representatives from the Montreal ridings accepted Laurin’s work without a second thought. The others were dead against it. Lévesque was caught in the middle of the attacks and insults. Going over the proposed language bill with a fine-toothed comb, he was noncommital. Did his reserved attitude stem partly