Podcast Just between you and me | Paul Arcand’s indignation is not a play

In Just between you and me, journalist Dominic Tardif boasts a great luxury, that of time. Always somewhere between laughter and emotion, between rich reflection and wild anecdotes, these interviews are all opportunities allowing media and cultural personalities to follow through on their thoughts.

At 17, after dropping off his resume at McDonald’s, Paul Arcand knocked with a friend on the door of the radio station in his native Saint-Hyacinthe, CKBS. Their show project was refused, but young Paul was hired.

More than 45 years later, the star host is preparing to close this chapter of his life, a decision taken because he is more aware than ever that we only have a given number of years, says the one who will continue to present his press review in podcast format from the fall, on the platforms of your favorite daily newspaper, where he will also write a column every Saturday.

But of all these juicy moments when the king of the airwaves followed a minister who insisted on returning his cassette, we will soon have to mourn. By the way, what is a good interview, according to Paul Arcand? “Contrary to what people imagine, the objective is not for the guest to think like me,” replies the one who asks the real questions, a slogan disseminated by TVA at the time when he piloted the show Arcand.

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This slogan amuses him more than it flatters him, Paul Arcand being the type to offer the minimum amount of nourishment to his ego. He thus intends, between now and his last edition of Since you have to get up on June 14, maintain “normal operations” and do everything so that daily life does not turn into a “festival of tributes and pseudo-tributes. » A good interview, then?

Quite an achievement, because the fiber of the wooden language of our leaders has become much denser during the 20 years during which he piloted the morning show at 98.5 FM. “There are lots of syrupy people, who pile up words believing that everything will be correct and I think that is contempt for the listener,” he laments. If you go around in circles and believe that your message will still get through, well, you are wrong. »

“People are not stupid, they are not stupid,” insists this eternal defender of the simple citizen. “They know very well that you didn’t answer, that you were asked three times, that you invented an answer, that you added up the words to save time. »

The grassroots

Question of being able to deceive elected officials who try to catch him in the net of their circumlocutions, Paul Arcand has always remained in close contact with what he calls “the grassroots people”, a salutary precaution when we fear more that everything that his studio turns into an ivory tower.

If he happens to go for coffee with a minister, a profitable opportunity to measure the sometimes unfathomable gap between the official version and the cold reality, the veteran dialogues especially with those who work in schools, in hospitals, at the DPJ. Paul Arcand also makes a point of reading all his emails himself.

The word “influence” makes the 63-year-old ranked ninth in the rankings uncomfortable. News of the 100 most influential people in Quebec. “I find it pretentious,” he says. I think the media have an influence, but I think we disturb more than we influence. »

However, it happens that his intervention has a concrete, even saving, impact in the lives of some of his listeners, as in many family reunification cases. “I have a natural empathy for people who are vulnerable and I recognize the importance of being outraged,” he explains about his inclination to take the side of those who are crushed by the system.

Don’t procrastinate

Paul Arcand has never stopped being indignant, but must have recently gained wisdom in the management of his energies. Last November, a blood infection forced him to spend a long time in hospital. For several weeks, the man had felt more tired than usual and sometimes found himself napping, a ritual which is (surprisingly) not part of his daily life, even though he goes to bed at 8 p.m. and wakes up. wakes up at 2:45 a.m.

Had it not been for his partner’s arm twisting, he would undoubtedly have stayed at home, rather than going to the emergency room. Today he admits to having been scared, but only in hindsight, by projecting himself into everything that could have shocked him.

If he says goodbye to mornings, it is to say hello to everything that the rest of life has to offer. Paul Arcand has podcast and documentary projects, would like to visit Turkey.

“When I talk to people my age, we say to ourselves that we don’t have too much time to waste,” observes the man whose friend Paul Houde left, too soon, too quickly, last month. “Because you don’t know how your life is going to turn out, you don’t know what you’re still going to be able to do. In other words, putting it off until you’re 63 is not a good idea. »