“Quebec needed more Benoît Pelletier”: tributes paid to the former minister abound

As much a convinced federalist as a great defender of Quebec, Benoît Pelletier is entitled to a shower of tributes following his death, he who, during his political career – and even after –, knew how to work for the development of the nation.

• Read also: Death of former Liberal minister Benoît Pelletier

Benoît Pelletier died Saturday in Mexico at the age of 64 from causes that have not been revealed. In 2021, he was severely affected by COVID.

“This is terrible news that took us by surprise. But then we move on to all the things he did for Quebec. It was a rare bird. In all the circles I frequent, I heard that Quebec needed more Benoît Pelletier,” says Patrick Taillon, constitutional expert and law professor at Laval University.

“He got involved in politics [en 1998] in the post-1995 referendum, in a climate where sovereignty was a few thousand votes away from being achieved, a very polarized context. You had to be extremely courageous to address the constitutional question in the PLQ as proposed by Benoît Pelletier,” says Mr. Taillon.

He also emphasizes that Mr. Pelletier was far above partisan games. For him, the interests of Quebec were more important than the squabbles between the parties.

The weight of Quebec

In interview at NewspaperLast year, Mr. Pelletier reacted strongly to the recommendations of the pressure group the Initiative of the Century. The group suggested increasing Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100 to “ensure our long-term prosperity.”

“I think that federal actors, in large part, are obsessed with numbers and forget Frenchness, forget the importance of the French language maintaining its status in Canada, forget the importance ultimately of helping French in this country […] I think that the decline in the weight of Quebec within Canada is an irreversible phenomenon,” declared Benoît Pelletier.

“Benoît assumed his attachment to Canada, but he was able to name the problems and said that he was going to work to alleviate them,” says Mr. Taillon. He never buried his head in the sand regarding the dysfunctions of Canadian federalism. His reaction to the Initiative of the Century is an example of this. The power of the federal government to spend was also one of its great struggles.”

“He had the integrity to concede that a problem exists, even if this would perhaps temporarily benefit his independence adversaries,” continues Mr. Taillon. He wanted a Canada more welcoming to the Quebec vision of federalism, but he did not pretend that this Canada already existed.

PM meetings

According to Patrick Taillon, Benoît Pelletier embodied reforming federalism.

“It’s a trend that corresponds to so many Quebecers […] He was a federalist like no other and that’s also why he was respected by all camps in Quebec […] We won’t find another one like him tomorrow morning,” thinks Mr. Taillon.

We also owe the creation of the Council of the Federation to Benoît Pelletier. If the prime ministers of the provinces had already been in the habit of meeting for a long time, it was in a fairly informal manner, specifies Patrick Taillon.

“He transformed the meetings into an institution with a permanent secretariat, staff, hoping one day that the Canadian Constitution would be reformed. It changed Canada. “It’s one of the most important aspects of his political legacy,” he believes.

His return to civilian life in 2008 was not without repercussions for the PLQ.

“He had a real bond with Jean Charest. I would even dare to say that when Mr. Pelletier left politics, it was more difficult years for Mr. Charest. He brought this sensitivity to the demands of Quebec,” opines Patrick Taillon.

Always present

But Benoît Pelletier did not turn his back on public service afterwards.

“He is a great Quebecer who served Quebec for many years, but also after politics. Regardless of the parties, he was always available for advice and opinions. Quebecers owe him a lot,” assures Simon Jolin-Barrette, current Minister of Justice in the CAQ government.

Mr. Jolin-Barrette himself consulted him for laws 21 (secularism) and 96 (French language).

“He knew that Quebec had a place within the Canadian federation and he wanted to have it respected. He is truly a strong nationalist voice, a man of principle, a man of honor. He had a sincere desire for public service. A sense of state too,” insists the minister.

And when Prime Minister Stephen Harper had his motion adopted in the Commons in 2006 that Quebec form a nation within a united Canada, there was some Benoît Pelletier there.

“He was the one who worked behind the curtains with the Harper government. He was the first to have the Commons recognize the existence of Quebec as a nation. The work we carried out in Bill 96 follows this motion. It is a great demonstration of his working style which succeeded in achieving his objectives. He cherished the idea of ​​a Quebec constitution to guarantee collective rights, it is important to remember that,” concludes Minister Jolin-Barrette.

• Born January 10, 1960 in Quebec
• Obtained his baccalaureate in law from Laval University in 1982
• Completed a master’s degree in law and two doctorates
• Legal advisor to the Department of Justice in Ottawa from 1983 to 1990
• Member of Parliament for Chapleau for the PLQ from 1998 to 2008 (elected in 1998, 2003 and 2007; did not run again in 2008)
• Minister of Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs
• Chairman of the PLQ special committee on the political and constitutional future of Quebec society
• Professor at the University of Ottawa from 1990 to 1998 and in 2009
• Lawyer at the law firm of Noël et Associés in 2009
• Author of numerous works on federalism, Quebec and the Constitution
• Died on March 30, 2024 in Mexico

Source: National Assembly website