At home, in the den of his office with walls lined with books, former PQ minister Claude Morin gave a series of interviews about his years spent, in the greatest secrecy, meeting agents of the RCMP. In Claude Morin. A dangerous game, a four-episode series broadcast on the Vrai platform, the viewer quickly finds himself glued to his seat. How on earth could such a minister, known to be intelligent, accept being paid by the intelligence services?
In an interview, Morin claims to have been inspired by detective films to appear credible. Is it commonplace to observe that behind him, when he confides, the viewer is able to distinguish several volumes of detective novels signed by Georges Simenon?
Since the “Morin affair” broke out with a bang in the spring of 1992, speculation has been rife. Has fiction ended up blurring the perception of reality about this man considered one of the main strategists of the 1980 referendum?
Claude Morin’s notebooks, consulted for the first time in the archives, allow this series to progress on new avenues. A close investigation, led by the historian of Duty Dave Noël and journalist Antoine Robitaille, show that everything has not yet been said.
Another minister with the RCMP?
For years, Claude Morin secretly met intelligence officers in hotel rooms. He was filmed without his knowledge, behind a one-way mirror. What did he say ? What did he reveal? Nothing compromising, he maintains. So why did the RCMP continue to trust him, year after year?
This fascinating documentary cites witnesses who claim that at least one other Parti Québécois minister, now deceased, was another source paid by the RCMP. But who then? Nobody wants to talk.
Morin thought he was alone. He would have liked, to hear him, to prevent dirty tricks against his party. The specialists interviewed in this series, however, reject the hypothesis that he was able to fool the security services, who always rely on more than one source.
According to Claude Morin, some of his cabinet colleagues were aware, to varying degrees, of his activities. He would also have liked that former minister Louise Beaudoin could help clear his name, by explaining what she knew. However, Louise Beaudoin refused to collaborate on this series. For what ?
Homosexuals in the crosshairs
Another documentary, The LGBT purge. The dark story, has just recalled that the RCMP has, for decades, recorded at least 30,000 Canadian homosexuals in order to keep them away from the public sphere. The federal police intended to blackmail them if necessary, as they did with communists. Claude Morin’s notebooks tell us that he answered questions from the RCMP on the sexual lives of leading figures of the independence movement, such as Guy Joron, Pierre Bourgault and Claude Charron.
René Lévesque’s former star minister minimizes the importance of such indiscretions on the private lives of others within his party. He argues today that everyone knew these things at the time. He therefore believes that they were not sensitive. Was it also unimportant that René Lévesque’s romantic life was documented by the RCMP, as this series reminds us?
In the 1970s, René Homier-Roy was an excellent friend of Guy Joron and Pierre Bourgault. Joined at his home by The duty, the Radio-Canada host says that this revelation about Morin is “surprising and worrying.” His entire circle of friends, he understands today, had to be on file with the RCMP. According to him, Bourgault and Joron were probably unaware that the RCMP “was on their case”. Even if Charron, Bourgault and Joron did not hide their homosexuality, “they might have acted differently” if they had known that the RCMP was “plotting something against them,” underlines Homier-Roy. That sexuality within this circle of friends was experienced more easily and openly than in other environments does not change the odiousness of the situation in which Claude Morin collaborated, thinks Homier-Roy.
Money
To clear his name, Claude Morin claims to have never touched the generous sums of money paid to him in cash by the RCMP. These sums total the equivalent of at least $80,000 today, calculated Dave Noël. Should we also note the fact that Claude Morin was paid, as an aside, travel expenses for at least one stay in France? The RCMP hoped that he would bring back information about a possible plot whose roots went back to the Soviets, according to an explanation that was tortuous to say the least.
The money was kept safe in a large safe installed at his home, says the ex-minister. It was then given to the Parti Québécois or, through a priest, to the good works of his parish. If this is true, this is at the very least a special way of proceeding in a government that was trying to better regulate the way political parties are financed. As for the money paid to the Catholic Church, it is protected by the Holy Spirit.
Claude Morin would never have benefited from this money? His personal notes reveal otherwise. He would have, at a minimum, “borrowed” from this kitty a sum which he estimated in an interview at $4,000 to buy, in 1975, a second-hand Renault 5 car. It was the price of a brand new large American car. Is Claude Morin’s memory failing? In any case, he claims to have repaid this sum to himself afterwards.
The overall picture
Has the focus on the Claude Morin affair ended up, over time, causing us to lose the overall perspective? This series rightly recalls the political maneuvers of the RCMP, while emphasizing, with supporting documents, that the former federal Minister of Justice Marc Lalonde and the former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau were not children. choir.
In interviews taken from the archives, former minister Marc Lalonde claimed to have known very early on that Claude Morin was working in concert with the RCMP. But in front of the cameras, for the purposes of this documentary, he argues the opposite.
Is it insignificant to note that the investigations that Quebec wanted to carry out into the illegal actions carried out by the RCMP were all dismissed, even before the Supreme Court? The illicit actions of the RCMP against the Quebec independence movement — theft of documents, dynamite, fires, surveillance, poisoning, etc. — have nevertheless been duly documented, recalls the series.
Who to believe?
Those close to Morin in politics present him as a sort of fine fox capable of playing with fire without getting burned. Even René Lévesque, the historic leader of the Parti Québécois, would have continued to frequent him after learning late of his involvement with the RCMP, this documentary shows.
It was rather around the circle of Jacques Parizeau that the condemnation of Morin was final. The deputy and poet Gérald Godin, among others near Parizeau, cursed Morin. We are far, however, from the criticisms of Pierre Dubuc, who asserts, in Claude Morin. A spy within the Parti Québécois (Editions du Renouveau québécois), a work which is appearing these days, that the ex-minister was quite simply a traitor to his nation and that he probably even collaborated with the CIA.
How long did Morin collaborate with these intelligence services of the federal gendarmerie? The revelations in this series are very disturbing. It turns out to be quite possible that his exchanges with the RCMP continued beyond the 1970s, contrary to what Morin asserts.
Holed up in his home for years, Claude Morin continues to smoke his pipe. He lives among his books and his puzzles of thousands of pieces that he has patiently put together to then display them on his walls, as works of art. His life itself, we say, resembles a very strange puzzle.