Canada’s Radical Now Retires

Rene Levesque wound up his political career the other day, announcing that he couldn’t finish his speech because he had lost the last page. The thousands who had gathered to pay homage to the retiring founder of Quebec’s independence movement roared in appreciation, not ridicule.

The gaffe, if that was what it was, typified the often-contradictory and always unusual way Levesque went about his political business.

Despite baggy eyes, bulbous nose and balding head, he always seemed to attract beautiful women to his side, and he defied the modern political strategists who dismiss any candidate who can’t make love to a television camera.

He was a fiery advocate for the dominance of French as the language of Quebec, yet he spoke English with more elegance and certainly with better grammar than he did French. He recently told a reporter in French that Quebecers were the “ plus fun” people in Canada.

Levesque was once an indifferent, poker-playing student who was kicked out of law school for smoking in class. When he wished, he could speak the language of the streets, often telling crude jokes and using GI slang he picked up during World War II while working as a radio correspondent for the United States. Yet he formed a highly educated and intellectual Cabinet to govern the province.

During much of the nearly 400-year history of Quebec, democracy was a cruel illusion covering an autocratic approach to governing that ranged from a near-feudal system of church-land baron rule to an authoritarian regime. Yet Levesque developed and led what may have been the most democratic political party in North American history.

More, he founded and led the most realistic, determined movement in North America to create an independent society carved from an existing nation since the American South rebelled more than a century earlier.

Yet by the time he retired as both premier of Quebec and leader of the Parti Quebecois, Levesque had, albeit ruefully, left Quebec sovereignty as a vague hope for some future time. He had come to the pragmatic recognition that nationhood for Quebec had been rejected by a population more concerned with economic recovery and efficient government than with independence from English-speaking Canada.

In the end, Levesque saw Quebec still part of Canada, his party in the hands of Pierre Marc Johnson, the son of a one-time bitter political foe. Levesque was tired, looking older than his 62 years, his reputation at its lowest ebb in decades; even the success of his turn toward pragmatic politics was in doubt, with polls showing the Parti Quebecois likely losers in the next elections.

But, like the contradictions that always marked his political life, his lack of success--some call it outright failure--is more illusion than reality.

When Levesque founded the Parti Quebecois in 1967, Quebec’s historic struggle to maintain its special status--part of the agreement that formed Canada--had turned into frustration and, sometimes, bitter violence.

The English-speaking provinces had prevailed over Quebec’s demands on a federal level and the Anglo minority in the province dominated nearly every aspect of economic, cultural and social life. To get a job as a janitor required ability to speak English; to many, a French accent was shameful.

Bitterness turned to rage, a rage culminating in the formation of a terrorist group that kidnaped and murdered in the name of freeing Quebec from the domination of the English-speakers.

But Levesque and his Parti Quebecois preempted the anger and channeled it into a peaceful yet revolutionary movement. With his 1976 provincial victory, Quebec had suddenly elected a government determined to establish the French-speakers’ culture as the power in province. In so doing, he saved Canada from the potential disaster of a violent rebellion.

He did outrage English-speakers--and many Quebec politicians with national ambitions--by forcing the province to accept French as the language of business, culture and politics. But he moved cautiously and religiously adhered to democratic principles. Rather than simply declaring Quebec independence, Levesque led his party into a referendum on sovereignty. And when he lost, he accepted the people’s decision with grace.

Clearly, Levesque’s dream of nationhood became obscured by the very success of his efforts to restore confidence and rights for the French-speakers; most Quebecers no longer felt the frustration that fueled the independence movement.

Levesque himself realized that the party’s survival would be endangered by a stubborn ideological stand, so he shifted emphasis. Sovereignty remains a future goal but a pragmatic program based on good government, economic revitalization and a faith in democracy now has top priority.

His program in place, Levesque turned the party over to a new generation of leaders, and, with humor and style, he walked away.