It has now become a ritual that needs no explanation: each time an election campaign is launched, journalists board party buses to criss-cross the province until election day. Yet, not so long ago, covering the Chiefs’ Tour was almost an obstacle course for journalists, who had to fend for themselves. Testimonials.
“It was often rock’n’roll,” admits retired journalist Robert McKenzie, who began his career on a daily basis. Montreal Gazette before becoming a parliamentary correspondent in Quebec for the Toronto Star for almost forty years. We had to organize ourselves, manage on our own.”
In 1960, at only 26 years old, the young reporter had a taste of his first electoral campaign, which then opposed the Liberal Jean Lesage to the outgoing Premier, Antonio Barrette, of the Union Nationale. The campaign is coming to an end, and McKenzie must replace Wilbur Arkison, his colleague courierist who fell ill the day before the vote.
“I had no car and little experience. I knocked directly on the door of Jean Lesage, who lived on rue Bougainville near the Plains of Abraham. I met his second son, and he offered to take me on his father’s tour. I remember getting in his convertible Cadillac, with him next to him greeting people on the Grande Allée.
The next day, the day of the vote, Robert McKenzie was to go to Joliette for the “victory speech” – which was rather a speech of defeat – by Antonio Barrette. It was by contacting the Unionist Party that he was able to find a volunteer to take him there. “Little anecdote: it was the singer Yoland Guérard, then little known, who took me into his convertible.”
At the time, in order not to miss any announcements and activities of the leaders, the journalists assigned to the election coverage had to travel by their own means. Sometimes, the parties invited them to board buses or planes chartered especially for the occasion, but only for the very long journeys towards Abitibi, Gaspésie or the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
From train to bus
“The years 1950-1970 were a special in-between period,” notes historian Jocelyn Saint-Pierre, retired from the Library of the National Assembly and author of the book The Quebec Press Tribune since 1960 (2016, North).
Before 1950, he explains, politicians and journalists traveled by train for free during election campaigns — whether in Quebec or even during federal campaigns — thanks to an agreement with Canadian National. Campaign buses only appeared in the 1970s.
Gisèle Gallichan vividly remembers covering the 1973 election campaign aboard the Union Nationale bus. “It was the first time, it seems to me, that we really had party buses, from the first to the last day of the campaign, remembers the one who was then a reporter for Radio-Mutuel. But it was really designed to transport the world, it was not a modified bus like we have today. I was working on my knees using my bag as support!”
Plunging back into her distant memories, the 76-year-old woman remembers above all the shared feeling that inhabited the journalists at the time. “On the one hand, we were happy to be able to do our job more easily, without thinking about all the logistics of travel. On the other hand, it was really embarrassing. There was a glaring ethical problem in having parties pay for our trips. Because we weren’t paying yet. Her employer also asked her to take the campaign bus only for longer trips than she could do alone in her car.
“We saw the criticism within the population, we were accused of being in the pay of the parties. But at some point, we had to cover it, this campaign. We embarked, with discomfort, but it was the easiest solution at the time”, adds Robert McKenzie.
According to Gisèle Gallichan, it was during the 1976 campaign that the media began to pay most of the expenses related to their presence in the caravans of political parties. A sum which has also enabled them to adapt the bus to facilitate the work of journalists.
“We had small work tables, more space and comfort, a corner for the editing tables at the back. Not only was it easier for us to do our job, but we didn’t feel bad getting on the party bus anymore. Happiness !” remembers the one who then worked on Radio-Canada television.
Despite this acquired independence, the journalists were nevertheless still criticized by the population because they followed a single leader throughout the electoral campaign. “We were taxed with making propaganda, with cronyism with politicians”, notes Mme Gallichan. Media companies have thus decided to change their bus journalist in the middle of the campaign, from the next election, in 1981. A tradition which has remained since all this time.
In the opinion of the two ex-journalists interviewed by The duty, the establishment of electoral caravans has really facilitated the work of journalists. But they are not surprised to see more and more media deserting the buses today. “The cost was already high at the time and has only increased over time,” says Ms.me Gallichan. So, with five caravans, I understand that we think twice about it.