Born in the Gaspé, René Lévesque has always shown interest in the peninsula and affection for the people of the Gaspé. Many traits of his personality come from his belonging to Gaspésie. And the latter will have an imprint on his political thought and on the importance he will give to the development of Quebec and its regions.
The first slice of his life spent in New Carlisle, which he describes as a “wild childhood” in his autobiography, marks him forever. There he acquires what he will say is a “draft identity”. The sea is for him a source of freedom and carelessness. All his life, he testified to his love for the sea. By rubbing shoulders with his fellow Gaspésians known for their simplicity and their human side, he inherited from them personality traits that would stick with him forever. “I learned from then on, he will say, this modesty which was never to leave me again…”
Hyperactive and rebellious, the impetuous kid with a strong temperament does the hundred blows and gives a hard time to his parents. After committing a wrongdoing, he mourns it with a dry laugh, shrugging his shoulders without saying a word, a spontaneous and very characteristic gesture that he will repeat throughout his life and which will end up making him very likeable. We will recognize the newsboy side of his childhood in the unconventional politician that he will be.
In the 1920s, two-thirds of New Carlisle’s residents were English-speaking. This establishment Anglophone makes him aware of serious educational inequalities between Francophones and Anglophones. These benefit from a high school allowing young people to enter McGill University once they have completed their eleventh year. This situation will have a great influence on his determination to promote the accessibility of education when he enters politics.
His base in English comes from his attendance at the bilingual elementary school and the young English speakers of the place. He does not hesitate to fight with the latter, who call him a pea soup or of french frog, hence his reputation as a rebel. However, he will not hold any resentment towards them.
End of the world
From 1933 to 1938 (at the age of 11 to 16), Lévesque attended the Séminaire de Gaspé, which he described as “the seminary at the end of the world”. Already introduced to the reading of the great classics by his father, he refined his intellectual development and his political thought. He also submits his first journalistic writings.
A gifted student, this top of the class enjoyed remarkable academic success, winning all the first prizes during his five years of classical studies. He would later admit that the Séminaire de Gaspé gave him a taste for discipline and rigor. Also, Corinne Côté-Lévesque will say that it was at this Seminar “that her mind opened up to the world […] and that his sense of justice and his social concerns have taken root”.
In contact with Jesuit teachers, Lévesque bathed in the nationalist effervescence of the time. He closely followed the advent of the cooperative movement in Gaspésie, taking root with the creation of agricultural and fishing cooperatives, all advocated by the Bishop of Gaspé, M.gr François-Xavier Ross, a fervent nationalist.
His awakening to journalism took shape at the age of 13 when he participated in the writing of articles in Flight, the newspaper of the students of the Séminaire. In May 1936, he took advantage of the party in Dollard to write, at the age of 14, “Why remain French? “. We detect the influence of Father Lionel Groulx in this indictment in favor of French. “In America, it is up to us to carry out this mission, which is to project onto imperialist America the light of French culture, of the spiritual culture that we alone possess. »
This first text by the young Lévesque with a nationalist flavor insists that his people take their place in the highest echelons of society and the economy. “Let’s claim […] the high positions that are due to us. Let us claim them and know how to reach them. From the day when this will be accomplished, we will be able to call ourselves masters in our own house. […]. Let us always encourage with all our strength the enlightened patriots who look after our interests and defend them, for upon their work depends the future of our race in America. »
Already, we can see the basis of his political credo which will follow him thereafter. He encouraged French Canadians to take their place and defend their interests. Through the quality of his French and the clarity of his opinions, we discover a young Lévesque who has the seeds of the great journalist and the great politician he will become.
First weapons
In the summer of 1938, back in New Carlisle for the holidays, Lévesque made his first journalistic debut at the local CHNC radio station, a bilingual radio station. In addition to being an announcer, he translates dispatches from French to English and from English to French. Already at the age of 15, he was hooked on electronic communication, which later made him a great communicator and an “educational journalist”.
After the Second World War, where he learned to be a reporter, Lévesque continued his work as a journalist. In a series of articles he published in Canada in 1947, he recounted his Gaspésie. Although he was flabbergasted by the incomparable beauty of the Gaspé landscape, he regretted that the political authorities did so little to develop this region. ” Perforated… […] Here is the ruin of all adjectives and all palettes. […] A bay… it picks up all the beauty of this unique coast… […] The paradises, he adds […], you have to deserve them. Of all of them, Gaspésie is undoubtedly one of the best defended: by nature first, but also by the negligence of politicians and men in general…”
Became Prime Minister in 1976, he refers to his region of origin, long neglected, to make regional development a priority. Under the impetus of his minister Jean Garon, he sought to modernize the fishing industry for the benefit of the maritime regions of Quebec, including Gaspésie.
As part of a policy of decentralization of the government apparatus to the regions, he decided to house the General Directorate of Maritime Fisheries in Gaspé. The success will be rather mixed. Expressing his disappointment, Lévesque will conclude that it is easier to bring up a cod in Quebec than to bring down a civil servant in Gaspé.
When he retired, Lévesque promised himself to visit his beloved Gaspé more often. “I’ll go see my Gaspésie again more often now than I see myself as an ordinary citizen. Impossible to enjoy it as long as you had to go “as” prime minister. […] However, I have been back there a few times in recent years. Enough to see that there, as elsewhere, an acceleration of history has occurred which metamorphoses and modernizes my Eden at the end of the world, but without making it ugly, which did not surprise me since it is not not ugly. »
As Gaspésie is located at the entrance of the St. Lawrence and the first official contacts of the French with the Aboriginals took place in Gaspé in 1534, Lévesque will always consider his native region as being at the forefront of history. of Quebec. He declared it vividly in Gaspé on July 24, 1984. “This is where it all began. Gaspésie is to Quebec what the thumb in hand is. »