Jean-François Lisée readily admits to having made some mistakes when he was a politician, the star columnist of Duty does not feel the slightest regret when thinking back to the string of texts he has signed in these pages since his departure from active politics. In his collection bringing together his best chronicles, he kept about fifty, those he considered the best, the most relevant. Some had aroused strong reactions at the time of their publication, but too bad, Jean-François Lisée assumes everything, at the risk of disturbing again.
“When an aspect of reality is obscured in journalistic coverage, I find it unfair for the reader. And when it’s a file that I know, I make it a point to write it down. It would be more intuitive to follow the dominant narrative, but that’s beyond my control. I’m aware that it’s attracting attention, that I’m on edge. But is that still provocation? I do not think so. I don’t write anything with the desire to shock,” he explains in an interview given a few days before the book’s publication.
Jean-François Lisée takes as an example his column “The mysteries of Kamloops”, published in February 2022, in which he recalls that no human bones have yet been found on the site of this former Indian residential school in British Columbia. However, a year earlier, it was said to have located the remains of 215 children there: news that had gone around the world at the time and which had aroused real national emotion.
there are always people further to the left and more to the right than us. And I am still a social democrat, and I know it. What interests me is justice, equal opportunities, the advancement of minority rights…
This wave of empathy for First Nations peoples is legitimate, according to Jean-François Lisée, who repeatedly mentions in his chronicles the injustices suffered by Aboriginal people over time. But sometimes, he believes, whatever the subject, the thankless job of a columnist consists in putting the facts forward, even if it means going against the journalistic doxa.
The other left
It is also in this spirit that he held in The duty to defend the author of Harry Potter, JK Rowling, thrown into pasture for her comments on the trans movement. This text had generated a lot of reactions when it was published in January 2022, once again causing the former leader of the Parti Québécois to be accused of being a conservative, even a reactionary.
Qualifiers that he rejects. But, one thing is certain, his positions in recent years – on the trans movement, on immigration or on the wearing of the veil – have certainly distanced him from part of the progressive left.
“Are these people really the left? In any case, there are always people further to the left and more to the right than us. And I am still a social democrat, and I know it. What interests me is justice, equal opportunities, the advancement of minority rights… The causes that are supported by those who are called the wokes today are the good ones. They existed before the word woke even existed. But the method that the wokes propose to achieve this is not the right one in most cases,” he says.
50 shades of Lisée
Both his column on J. K Rowling and that on the Kamloops residential school can be found in Through the mouth of my pencils, a collection which brings together several of what he judges to be his best texts of the last three years. Those who have aged the best, at least.
As part of this book, published by Somme tout / Le Devoir, he allowed himself to lengthen certain chronicles to go to the end of his thoughts on certain subjects that are close to his heart. Jean-François Lisée also departed from the concept by incorporating into his book some texts which appeared before his entry into the Duty. This is the case of a column published in 2011 in News titled “Watching Men Fall,” in which he rejoices that certain macho behaviors that were once tolerated have become unacceptable in an era where the march towards equality is accelerating.
Six years before the #MeToo movement, Jean-François Lisée likes to think that he was ahead of his time on these issues. What shut the beak to those who will be tempted to accuse him of delaying the group when he allows himself today to express some reservations about the movements of denunciation.
“We are entering the century of women, and we haven’t seen anything yet. I welcome it. But as with all big changes, there will be collateral damage, that’s for sure. And we must correct it as we move forward. For example, anonymous trials in the public square are no. Believe the victims, yes, but not at all costs. You still have to accept the rule of evidence. And it is also extraordinary that the rule of proof is changing for the benefit of the victim,” says the man who also works with Radio-Canada as a political analyst.
Surprised by Legault
This former journalist returned to the media through the front door after leading the PQ to a crushing defeat in the 2018 election. Jean-François Lisée, who had been beaten in his own riding, has since passed the towel. Anyway, he suffered much more from the defeat of 2014, when he was minister of Pauline Marois, and that of the referendum of 1995, when he was adviser to Jacques Parizeau. In 2018, Jean-François Lisée knew the collapse of the Parti Québécois was inevitable.
“Maybe someone else would have done better than me. But the defeat was part of a cycle of party disenchantment that had not yet come to an end in 2018. I think the end of this cycle was the 2022 election, ”says the former strategist PQ member, who still has his party membership card.
He predicts that, under Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the PQ will recover in the next election. But we must admit that in the meantime the government of François Legault is perhaps a lesser evil. Through lip service, Jean-François Lisée even admits to having sometimes been pleasantly surprised by the man who beat him five years ago.
“Our big fear was that he would reduce the size of the state and, in the end, that didn’t happen. On social issues, he often did well. It must be said that he inherited a very good budgetary situation and that the Quebec economy continued to do well. […] In secularism, he also did what was necessary, even if it was not the file with which he was most comfortable”, he notes, before specifying that, on the protection of the French fact, François Legault has however for the moment a balance sheet in halftone.
“Law 96 is a good start, but it is not enough. My role in the coming years, with others, will be to put enough heat under their feet so that they feel the urgency to act,” promises the tireless columnist.