It is with amazement and great sadness that I learned of the death of Frédéric Bastien. I want to offer my condolences to his wife and children, relatives and friends. I loved this man and his ideas. A man of conviction, reflection, action, fighting spirit, tenacity and loyalty.
A nationalist and separatist from a very young age, he came from a PQ family. He never deviated from or thought about going to the Coalition avenir Québec or Québec solidaire, when those parties had the wind in their sails, and the Parti Québécois was going through difficult times, as many have done, out of ambition and personal interest. For him, only the Quebec that he loved so much counted.
As a historian, he knew the beauty, the grandeur, the difficulties and the pain of our journey as a nation, from New France to today. How many hours of work he put into his work, beautiful work, The Battle of London (Boréal, 2013), on the less than rosy underside of the repatriation of the Constitution, without and against Quebec. Who else but him to work hard on this file and so many others? He was a real pit bull. When he held a calf, he did not let go and spared no effort!
Intellectual, he was one of the great thinkers of Quebec country. He was actively looking for ways to get Quebec out of the impasse in which it finds itself. His convictions, which were not very fashionable in the university elite, deprived him of a more prestigious career. Although his ideas did not always find takers in the high authorities of the party – Jean-François Lisée would have preferred Michèle Blanc to him – he was always a good soldier. Not resentful, he worked for Mr. Lisée in Rosemont. The cause above all!
I myself supported him in the race to succeed Mr. Lisée, even before his candidacy was announced. When he came to the riding of Taschereau, he convinced me right away. Never had a politician had ideas so close to mine, an assumed identity separatist. I did his campaign as a volunteer. A very small team, a long and difficult campaign, marked by COVID. He didn’t let go.
I knew his chances of winning were very slim. Jean-François Lisée had abandoned his first race before winning the second, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon took the honors on his second attempt; examples of this kind abound. In politics, notoriety takes time to come. We fight for ideas before fighting to win. If you lose, you advance your ideas, this was his case. He took the time, a man of heart and loyalty, to thank those who stood by his side. He thanked me for my contribution to his candidacy and he expressed his appreciation of my texts on subjects of all kinds.
He was always available to talk about independence in the media. He became a columnist at Montreal Journal and at Quebec newspaper. His texts, always relevant, which I looked forward to on Saturday, were much shared. I wondered how he could make arrows of any wood as he did. Multiple associations, lawsuits, writing, teaching, couple, family… He defended secularism, French, fought mass immigration, in the process of drowning French Quebec, the initiative of the century and instrumental multiculturalism against secularism and Quebec nation.
They say there are no irreplaceable men, but I doubt that for men of his caliber. I miss him already, he would have done so much more for the Quebec that we love so much. In any case, he was beautiful to see going, visor raised, like a valiant knight on the front line!