In the context of the centenary of the birth of René Lévesque, we rightly recall the great achievements of the Prime Minister in linguistic, cultural, economic and other matters. But it seems to me that we should also shine the spotlight on a major but often overlooked part of the accomplishments of the Parti Québécois government from 1976 to 1985: land use planning and decentralization.
Posted yesterday at 6:00 p.m.
As soon as his first council of ministers was formed, Mr. Lévesque appointed a Minister of State responsible for land use planning, Jacques Léonard, thus marking the importance of the field (with economic, cultural and social developments). What is less well known is that at the beginning of his mandate he set up a ministerial committee on decentralization, which he insisted on chairing himself. The two Ministers Jacques Léonard and Guy Tardif, Ministers of Municipal Affairs, were part of it, with a public service official (Deputy Minister Yvon Tremblay) and two chiefs of staff (including the signatory of these lines).
From the outset, René Lévesque told us that he wanted to carry out a profound reorganization of the management of the Quebec territory, especially in a context of sovereignty: “We will not achieve independence to strengthen the government in Quebec, but to give back to the regions,” he tells us straight away.
The first cogitations focused on the fact that there was no regional structure to support and assume new decentralized powers. Apart from the three urban communities of Montreal, Quebec and the Outaouais, there was no strong political structure in the territory: small and medium-sized towns and villages, but nothing integrated and structured. The committee’s first observation was therefore to rule that it was first necessary to create such structures throughout Quebec, integrating the rural and the urban, with an administrative force. The decision was then taken to create what were called regional county municipalities (MRC), which would replace the county councils (a rather obsolete century-old structure).
Once the MRCs are in place, strong decentralization actions could be envisaged.
Genesis of the RCMs
Jacques Léonard and his team devoted major energies to meeting with county councils and the municipal world outside urban communities, with the aim of convincing them to move towards the new MRC formula, with a recomposition of territories and with new powers. Which was done in two years.
Faced with the issue—still very present—of urban sprawl, the first mandate of the RCMs was to adopt development plans for their territory (especially since, at the same time, under the responsibility of Minister Jean Garon, a law on the protection of agricultural land attempted to correct the damage of decades of laissez-faire in this regard.)
The task of setting up this new structure was so heavy, like that of preparing regional development plans, that the Lévesque government did not have time to proceed further with the desired decentralization, in all its magnitude ( in a context where issues such as the 1980 referendum and the patriation of the 1982 constitution monopolized the Prime Minister’s attention). Without going into details, we can point out that, in 1992, the Minister of Municipal Affairs at the time, Claude Ryan, proceeded to a certain decentralization in terms of local roads and the police towards the RCMs.
As mentioned recently (August 16, 2022) the secretary general of Mr. Lévesque’s executive council, Louis Bernard, a next step towards strengthening the MRCs would be to make the election by universal suffrage of the prefects of the MRCs compulsory, thus giving them a status as essential interlocutors with the government and a regional stature. Currently, it can be done, but optionally (13 prefects are already elected by universal suffrage). Louis Bernard estimated in his text that an increased political force of the RCMs will eventually generate regional governments (which will oversee them). This was also René Lévesque’s position on the decentralization committee.
What is certain is that the government of Quebec, whoever it is, should pursue this path of decentralization and political reinforcement of the RCMs, the one opened by René Lévesque.