Have you heard of “Before leaving”, Danielle Ouimet’s fabulous project? Interview notable figures from Quebec about their career, their life, their legacy, knowing that their end is approaching. These will interviews will only be released after their death.
• Read also: Serge Laprade dies at 83
When I learned of Serge Laprade’s death, I immediately thought that he had left too soon. He would not have been able to confide in the host-actress-author Danielle Ouimet. Imagine the conversations these two would have had, about Quebec showbiz, while they starred together in The Initiation!
MEMORY DUTY
I have often said that in Quebec, we have no memory. That we were not honoring our elders, our predecessors at their true value. That the youngest saw no further than the tip of their own navel.
That’s why I applauded when my friend Danielle told me (secretly) her idea for interviews. And I applauded when I found out this week that it worked.
- Listen to Serge Laprade’s last interview on Sophie Durocher’s show via QUB :
To “preserve the memory of the great builders of Quebec,” Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe announced that he was donating more than $2,755,000 to the “Before leaving” project. It is “the ultimate meeting, imbued with emotion, and a legacy of various key figures of our society intended for future generations”.
These are 50 45-minute interviews produced by France Beaudoin (from Pamplemousse) which will be broadcast (at the time of the individuals’ deaths) on Télé-Québec and on the Bibliothèque et Archives nationaux du Québec (BAnQ) website.
I am happy to see Minister Mathieu Lacombe financing this project. He who already told me that it was normal that people of his generation did not know certain great builders of the previous generation.
I interviewed Serge Laprade at QUB, December 14, 2023. When I asked him why he got married, he replied: “Why not?” And when I asked him why he waited so long to experience his love openly, he said: “The timing is good, society has evolved. It wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago.” How the women who were crazy about him would have reacted when he sang You in front of me what if they had learned that he loved men? “I think it would have jeopardized, certainly, profoundly my career. I did this job to be loved, I looked for love all my life, because my mother died when I was five years old.
It is important for young Quebecers to measure the journey they have taken to reach them…
- Listen to the reactions of Mario Lirette and Érick Rémy to the death of Serge Laprade via QUB :
GOODBYE MRS B
In an interview Wednesday at QUB, Danielle Ouimet told me that she would have loved to interview Denise Bombardier.
Thursday, January 18, happened to be Denise’s birthday.
If life had not taken her away from us in July 2023, she would have been 83 years old. We would have gone to eat at a restaurant, we would have drunk a very good Burgundy.
She would have worn her decorations (Order of Canada, National Order of Quebec, Legion of Honor) in her buttonhole.
We would have talked about life and death.
Faced with the grim reaper, when we look in the rearview mirror, we all ask ourselves the same questions: what did we succeed, what did we fail?
What would Mrs. B. have wanted to talk about “before leaving”?