This summer, René Lévesque would have been 100 years old. Until August 24th, anniversary date, The duty highlights on all its platforms the memory of the founder of the Parti Québécois, one of the greatest prime ministers in the history of Quebec.
Lévesque governments were much more than a one-man affair. It was even the opposite.
Describing himself as a “dropout”, René Lévesque recounted in his memoirs (Wait until I remember…, Québec Amérique, 1986) having sometimes been intimidated by the level of qualification and competence of the members of his cabinet of ministers. “How can I manage to hold the helm of a ship manned by so many potential captains? »
On the economic side, if his first government did not include “a single emanation [du] world of business “, he could draw on many talents, starting with a character larger than life, to the point where, over time, the simple fact of talking about “Monsieur” was enough for one to understand that he was Question from Jacques Parizeau.
In his memoirs, René Lévesque speaks of the man who remained his Minister of Finance until his resignation at the end of 1984 as a “financial magician” who, according to him, would prove to be “the most effective at the same time as the most progressive of all the big money-makers in Quebec”. In 1976, he even entrusted him with the roles of Minister of Finance and Revenue in addition to President of the Treasury Board, well aware of the reassuring image that the renowned economist and former great mandarin of the state with bourgeois ways.
“Mr. Parizeau was ready to try all sorts of things to improve the fairness and efficiency of government,” recalls François Vaillancourt, professor emeritus of economics at the Université de Montréal. He certainly had a more activist conception of the state. »
Mr. Parizeau was willing to try all sorts of things to improve the fairness and efficiency of government. He certainly had a more activist conception of the state.
“René Lévesque said that Jacques Parizeau was right nine times out of ten, but watch out when he’s wrong,” says Pierre Fortin, professor emeritus at the Université du Québec à Montréal and former chief economic adviser to René Lévesque in 1984 and 1985. He was probably thinking, among other things, of his opposition to major hydroelectric dam projects in the 1970s because he believed that the future belonged to nuclear power, or even to the PQ government’s decision to nationalize the asbestos sector. “But Lévesque was not a yes-man and Parizeau greatly respected his political judgment. »
All the others
But Jacques Parizeau is not the only minister of the Lévesque governments to have distinguished himself in economic matters.
Economist and jurist, Jean Garon will be “stunned” when he learns that his boss has entrusted him with the Ministry of Agriculture, says Martine Tremblay, the former chief of staff of René Lévesque, in his story of the years of power (Behind closed doors, Quebec America, 2006). “Strong character” with “truly language”, Mr. Garon nevertheless carries out the delicate project of agricultural zoning.
Until then television superstar – a bit like a Julie Snyder before the hour – Lise Payette appears to be an even more improbable economic minister. However, it inherited the Ministry of Consumers, Cooperatives and Financial Institutions and the mission to carry out the ambitious automobile insurance reform. She will do her job brilliantly.
We could also speak of the “stoic” Yves Bérubé, at Natural Resources, then at the Treasury, to whom René Lévesque will entrust the impossible role of counterbalancing Jacques Parizeau, reports Martine Tremblay. By Guy Tardif and Rodrigue Biron, who set up the Corvée-Habitation economic recovery programs and the “Biron plan” during the terrible economic crisis of the early 1980s. By Bernard Landry, main author of the major development strategy of the government, Building Quebec, and the first to be Minister of Foreign Trade. Or Pierre Marois, among other creators of the Commission for Occupational Health and Safety.
In his memoirs, René Lévesque relativized the power he really had as prime minister, saying he constantly had to deal with the different priorities of his ministers, the game of partisan politics and the different forces that run through society.
Certainly, he said, “power is not an end but the beginning of the opportunity to move forward, not alone, and to move forward as much as you can, with others”.