The father of the Charter of the French language, the former independence minister Camille Laurin, died 25 years ago on Monday. “What infinite patience he had! » exclaims former minister Louise Harel, referring to her general determination as well as her way of viewing social relationships.
Camille Laurin first had a brilliant career as a psychiatrist, as recounted by her biographer, Jean-Claude Picard. And even when he was no longer practicing, everyone continued to call him “doctor”. Not without reason, emphasizes Louise Harel.
Paul Gouin’s protégé
In Quebec before 1960, access to basic education was not guaranteed for everyone. The Laurin siblings, based in Charlemagne, are pulling the devil by the tail. The family is pious. Despite their prayers to heaven, the Laurins can barely make ends meet.
If young Camille, born in 1922, was able to attend L’Assomption college, it was thanks to Paul Gouin. In the 1930s, Gouin was a major political figure. Offshoot of Prime Minister Lomer Gouin, he leads a faction of dissident deputies within the National Liberal Action (ALN). To rise to power, Gouin risks an alliance with the conservatives led by Maurice Duplessis. The latter will make short work of it within the National Union. During these eventful years, Paul Gouin had only good words, in private, regarding the academic results of Camille Laurin, his little protégé.
Very early on, young Laurin demonstrated a considerable appetite for intellectual work. Curious about everything, he attended St. Mary’s English Academy, an English language club. Young people discuss history, current affairs and religion. “We tend to forget that Camille Laurin had the highest esteem for English culture,” says Louis Bernard, former chief of staff to René Lévesque, in an interview with Duty.
In colleges it is repeated like a mantra that faith is the guardian of the tongue, and vice versa. The Catholic religion will occupy, throughout his life, a preponderant place in the mind of Camille Laurin. To the point where he is, for a time, inhabited by the hope of becoming a priest. It’s the war. The seminarian in a cassock finds himself, come summer, working in a munitions factory. The cassock will quickly fall off.
When Laurin reads Karl Marx, after the terrible butchery of this conflict, it is not to embrace his theses, but to consider how to rethink social justice, in accordance with Christianity. Until the beginning of the 1950s, Laurin continued to be one with the social and political positions of the Church. In his writings, he goes so far as to defend authoritarian policies, such as those of Salazar in Portugal.
The doctor
At the University of Montreal, Camille Laurin studied medicine while directing the pages of Latin Quarter. This student newspaper, a true journalism school, appears twice a week.
His medical training appears to him to be insufficient, not to say outdated. He will perfect his knowledge during several study trips to Europe, as well as to the United States.
Having become a psychiatrist, immediately aware of the need to rethink the system, Camille Laurin cannot explain why Quebec hospitals treat mentally ill patients so badly. He worked to reform the Albert-Prévost Institute, attached to the University of Montreal. Fascinated by the mazes of human thought, the doctor is closely interested in the sensitive world. “I have always believed,” he said, “that great writers have a deeper conception of man and society than that of scholars. » At this time, the general public also learned about him through television and radio.
The independentist
In the mid-1960s, when he was still far from being an independentist, Laurin could not explain why French was not established as the official language of Quebec, why it was not established as a necessity in the ‘public space.
In 1965, there was talk of Laurin being a Liberal Party candidate in the federal election. The arrival in the Canadian sky of doves led by Pierre Elliott Trudeau made him wonder. He will turn to the “Quebec option” designed by René Lévesque. Quebecers are growing up under the sign of an ambivalence and an ambiguity that we must know how to break, he proclaims.
In 1970, he was elected member of the Parti Québécois in a working-class neighborhood whose reality contrasted with the lifestyle he adopted when he settled in Outremont. Defeated in 1973, he returned to the private practice of psychiatry, without abandoning political activism. In 1976, Lévesque made him a trusted man. It is to him that he entrusts to watch over a broad cultural field in which the linguistic dimension of the majority fits.
At the same time, “he was our confessor”, like others, Louise Harel would say. “He lent himself to confidence. He was also a bit of our lightning rod. In my case, it was he who ensured that Mr. Lévesque’s anger did not fall on my head! »
Culture
“We readily forget that the framework of Law 101 was based on a very developed vision of the notion of culture, its place and its importance in society,” recalls Louise Harel. There had been a white paper on the language issue. But it was closely followed by another, devoted to culture. In fact, one did not go without the other. »
Louis Bernard insists on the cultural dimension of Laurin’s aims: “The white paper on culture was a well-thought-out work, for the long term. » A white paper is an official document which intends to present, in a relatively concise manner, the main principles of a policy considered as complex as it is fundamental.
“There is a huge difference with the way we view the linguistic issue today, which is essentially legal,” notes Louise Harel, making direct reference to Minister Jolin-Barrette’s approach.
Supports
From the first days of December 1976, as soon as he knew that he was going to become Minister of State for Cultural Development, Camille Laurin intended to rely on competent people.
He wishes to recruit, as deputy minister and assistant minister, two eminent professors: sociologists Guy Rocher and Fernand Dumont. The two men accept.
For Rocher as for Dumont, language is a vector of culture. However, the fundamental needs of the French majority are far from being assured on this side, they judge.
Dumont will, in 1977, be the main author of the white paper entitled Quebec’s French language policypresented ahead of the new legislation.
Lévesque’s hesitations
It was repeated that René Lévesque was not entirely enchanted by the scope of the language policy proposed by Camille Laurin. Louis Bernard believes that nuance is necessary. “Mr. Lévesque had hesitations. He wanted to ensure that the language policy was stable. I reassured him a lot on that, he said. For the rest, it was at most differences of opinion. »
What were Lévesque’s objections? In the eyes of Martine Tremblay, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, the Prime Minister was not keen on the idea of needlessly targeting the English-speaking community and business people on the eve of a referendum. However, Camille Laurin tirelessly returned to the charge, with calm and aplomb. “It was a bulldozer, Camille Laurin,” observes Martine Tremblay. He took all the time he needed. He wore people out! It must be said that he was supported by Louis Bernard, who had enormous influence. »
Bill 101 will be adopted. “Camille Laurin is rightly recognized as the father of the Charter of the French language,” says Martine Tremblay.
The return
In 1984, Camille Laurin was deputy prime minister. He is among the deputies who resign following the reorientations set by Lévesque in favor of a federalism considered as “a great risk”. In a beautiful letter, Lévesque nevertheless assured him that “nothing could undermine” their friendship.
Re-elected in 1994, his hair still dyed raven black, Laurin is now 72 years old. He is disappointed to see that the new prime minister, Jacques Parizeau, does not grant him a ministry. “Mr. Parizeau wanted a new cabinet. He wanted to show a gap between the former government and his own,” explains Louis Bernard.
What is Camille Laurin’s legacy? “Bill 101, certainly,” says Louis Bernard. ” It is enormous. Not only was the law stable, but it changed the face of Quebec. Before, we had 80% of immigrants switching to English. » This relationship with language, posited by Laurin as fundamental, will have revealed to Quebecers an image of themselves until then quite blurred by confusing legislation.