The month of March marked the birthday of the former editor-in-chief of Duty André Laurendeau. In a very unlikely scenario, he would have celebrated 112 candles this year.
In March 1961, seven years before his early death at the age of 56, André Laurendeau received an unexpected birthday gift from a young activist for Quebec independence. Pierre Bourgault, then a member of the RIN, invited him to debate in the pages of the newspaper around the question of “separatism” after Laurendeau had written a few days earlier: “Even at the height of the demands, even when we suffer an injustice which done badly, we still have the impression that these difficulties could be resolved within the current political framework. »
In this text dating from February 20, Laurendeau associated the “separatist” project with unrealism. Reproaching his defenders for imagining, beyond fantasy, solidarity between underdeveloped countries and French-Canadian society, Laurendeau also struggled to believe that Canada would simply allow itself to be torn apart.
On March 7, Pierre Bourgault took up the pen in turn, not failing to demonstrate great arrogance. This is because the 27-year-old young man felt that Laurendeau should act like an “elder” when he chose instead to think like an “old man”.
But a profound political thought still managed to slip through the personal attacks: “For someone unfamiliar with politics and little sensitive to the external realities around us to make such a statement, I would understand. But how can you, who have been playing with these problems for so many years, you who I believe to be sensitive, you who believed in something, how dare you speak in such an unempirical way? »
Crisis
At the time, Canada was going through a major crisis in its history and it had its source in Quebec. This verdict was not delivered by Bourgault in March 1961, it was precisely André Laurendeau in 1965, at the helm of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.
But in the meantime, the editor-in-chief of Duty prefers to attack the “separatist” option: “Separatists are people who write. They generally do it very well. Moreover, the separatist position is one which, based on nationalism, can be defended very well – on paper. It is a clear, stimulating attitude […] likely to appeal to young minds. It is normal, or at least very acceptable, for people to be separatists at twenty-five. It becomes more worrying at thirty-five. »
For Laurendeau, the Quebec independence project “is not viable, not livable” and cannot be “translated into reality”. A realistic posture would rather consist of “using the powers we possess.” To look at the provincial state of Quebec as the less powerful but real tool of a policy that corresponds to our needs and our thinking […]. It would be wrong, in the name of a utopia, to turn away from it.” Laurendeau’s wish could not be formulated more clearly: that the youth of the 1960s put themselves at the service of the autonomy of the provincial state in a united Canada.
However, this strange country will soon be 100 years old and Bourgault is also categorical: French Canadians are exhausted from hoping that one day they will be at home there: “What you are asking of our people is to live in hero and this during all the years of each person’s life. What you are asking of our people is to be at the height of action 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. […] Heroes only do heroic actions. They know how to reserve themselves for these moments. It would be futile and unwise to ask them that their entire lives be an act of heroism. »
Already seen
This fatigue which results from stubborn heroism, Hubert Aquin will also express it in his own way a year later in the pages of the magazine Freedom.
A contemporary look at the exchange between André Laurendeau and Pierre Bourgault inspires a feeling of déjà vu. More than sixty years have passed and Quebec society still seems lost in this labyrinth which invariably brings it back to the same observation: that of dissatisfaction and bitterness.
In 1961, Laurendeau, believing himself to be a realist, focused on the affirmation of Quebec within Canada and autonomy. But it was Bourgault, the separatist, who had the last word on March 22, quoting André of Germany: “That we fully use the powers of our provincial state… it is indeed an absolute necessity. But it can only be a step. Autonomism is only conceivable as a stage […] Otherwise, it is a half-measure which amounts to wanting to make the nation a body without a head; you need both to live. »
To the wise.