Stormy Era Ends as New Quebec Premier Takes Oath

Pierre Marc Johnson was officially sworn in Thursday as Quebec’s new premier, replacing Rene Levesque, the founder of the independence-oriented Parti Quebecois.

Johnson, 39, a Cabinet minister in the Levesque government, won an overwhelming victory at the party’s leadership convention Sunday. A physician as well as a lawyer, Johnson became the province’s 24th premier nearly 20 years after his father, Daniel, headed the 1966-68 Quebec government of the former Union Nationale Party.

Levesque, 63, submitted his resignation as premier only moments before Johnson was sworn in at a ceremony in the provincial legislature. The retiring premier had earlier resigned his seat in that body and is planning to keep out of politics in the immediate future.

The transfer of power ends a stormy political era in Quebec, which under Levesque marched to the brink of independence from Canada. Levesque came to office in an upset election in 1976.

Johnson retained most of Levesque’s Cabinet but left open the possibility of a thorough Cabinet shuffle in the near future.

The only immediate changes involved the two posts that Johnson had held under Levesque. He named Vice Premier Marc-Andre Bedard to be provincial solicitor general and appointed Labor Minister Reynald Frechette as justice minister.

Johnson, while not renouncing the possibility that Quebec might again one day seek independence, has made it clear that economic and social issues would have top priority in his government and that he intends to bring predominantly French-speaking Quebec into the political mainstream of the Canadian federal system.

The new premier, of French and Irish descent, joined the Parti Quebecois in 1968 after his father died of a heart attack. But he was never viewed as a hard-liner on the separatism issue.

Although he grew up in the heart of provincial politics, he first studied law and received his degree from the University of Montreal in 1971. He then decided to study medicine at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec.

In a brief speech after he was sworn in Thursday, Johnson called for expanded trade between Quebec and the United States and said that his government will take other steps to improve the province’s finances.

“We have to accept the challenge of growing and producing to help us meet our needs,” the new premier said.

Johnson won the party leadership Sunday with about 60% of the vote of all card-carrying Parti Quebecois members. He ran against five opponents.

When the Quebec legislature reconvenes Oct. 15, Johnson will have a narrow edge, with 61 Parti Quebecois members. There are 53 Liberals, six independents and two vacancies in the 122-seat chamber.

Johnson must soon decide when to call an election that is due no later than next spring. The Parti Quebecois is currently trailing the opposition Liberals of Robert Bourassa by about 20 percentage points in public opinion polls and a fall election is widely anticipated.

Levesque announced last June that he would resign, ending a 25-year career in which he dominated Quebec’s political scene. As a Liberal Party Cabinet minister in the 1960s, his gradual move toward separatism paralleled a similar move in the society at large, as the independence movement grew from a terrorist fringe to a political party strong enough to win elections in 1976 and 1981.

His bitterest political defeat came in May, 1980, when Quebec voters by a 3-2 margin refused to give him a mandate to negotiate with the rest of Canada for a recognition of Quebec sovereignty.