Peter predicted that René Lévesque might form a new party of the left. In his last “Quebec Report” (October 20, 1962), Peter continued to deal with the topic of the possible nationalization of eleven hydro companies. The issue was central to the upcoming provincial election, called for November 14. Once again he used the term quiet revolution, by now a cliché, he admitted, but an apt one to describe “the change that has swept through every facet of Quebec life from movie censorship to education, from the Church to the daily press, from high finance to the consumption of alcohol.” And the mainspring of this change, Peter argued, was the provincial government. Of course, as he pointed out, by reforming the corrupt methods of former Premier Maurice Duplessis, Jean Lesage had denied his Liberals the spoils of office such as liquor licences and road construction contracts. Alienated Liberals, Peter predicted, might turn to Daniel Johnson, leader of the opposition Union Nationale.22
It didn’t take Peter long to realize that one of the sore points among French-speaking Montrealers was Westmount. In “Westmount,” Peter wrote about the wealthy city within a city. The article appeared in Maclean’s in September 1962, and the month following in Le Magazine Maclean, where its title, “Westmount l’immutable,” emphasized the seemingly permanent nature of the Protestant-Jewish enclave whose thirty-two thousand residents, less than 1 percent of the population of Quebec, controlled a good portion of the province’s economy. Taxes were low, while services and political integrity were high. But don’t look for The Catcher in the Rye in the Westmount Library, Peter warned, at least not on the open shelves. “It deals with homosexuality,” a librarian had quietly explained.
Peter was one of the first English-speaking journalists, perhaps the very first, to write profiles of rising stars such as Pierre Trudeau, newly appointed as a law professor at l’Université de Montréal. In English Canada in 1961, Trudeau wasn’t much known. While working on his article on Bordeaux Prison, Peter had encountered Trudeau’s name, though perhaps not for the first time, for Trudeau and Blair Fraser had covered the March 1958 federal election for the CBC. Although Peter never wrote about that coverage, he had no doubt watched the results on television in Chatham.23
On December 15, 1961, when Peter arrived at the art-filled Outremont home of Grace Trudeau, Pierre poured Peter a triple Scotch while the abstemious law professor opted for mineral water. The resulting article, “Portrait of an Intellectual in Action,” shows Peter at his best. The style is lyrical, the research meticulous, and the explanation of the complex nature of Quebec politics impeccable. “In a civilization where the influence of the thinking man is generally confined to his advice on filters for cigarettes,” the article began, “Quebec stands out as a place where the intellectual had some part in a recent and vital political victory — the toppling, in June 1960, of the Union Nationale regime.” Peter quite correctly gave some of the credit for the victory of Jean Lesage’s Liberals to the small group of intellectuals who had been publishing Cité Libre throughout the 1950s. He also admired Trudeau’s sense of fun, his mischief, his daring. Trudeau had thrown snowballs at Stalin’s statue in Moscow in 1952, he had performed a somersault in Shanghai in 1960, and he had once tried to row from Florida to Cuba. Peter wrote that Trudeau enjoyed challenging flawed ideologies such as that of Premier Duplessis, or Quebec nationalism and separatism. Perhaps in some countries, Trudeau explained to Gzowski, separatism was an option, but not in Canada, which for most of the twentieth century had been creating a multinational state. “The hope of mankind,” Trudeau added, “lies in multinationalism.” 24 The article was published in Le Magazine Maclean as “Un capitaliste socialisant: Pierre-Elliott Trudeau.” In English, Trudeau’s intellectual qualities were underlined by the title; in French the contradiction in ideologies was more important.
Peter’s third profile of an important figure in the Quiet Revolution was called “The Cardinal and His Church in a Year of Conflict.” Published on July 14, 1962, it dealt with Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger and the changing role of the Catholic Church in the new Quebec. Peter knew how to hook the reader. “The French and Catholic people of Quebec,” the article began, “in their by now famous quiet revolution, are changing faster than any group of people on this continent.” One of the leaders of this change was the archbishop of Montreal, Cardinal Léger, who was supported by bishops in Ottawa and Quebec City but opposed by bishops in Quebec’s smaller cities. To advise him, Peter pointed out, the cardinal had surrounded himself with bright, well-educated young priests who were connected with universities and the labour movement. While he wasn’t in favour of dissolving the Church’s role in education, Léger encouraged greater lay participation. The article won Best Magazine Article of the Year. As usual Peter was prescient. Only decades later did historians understand how the Quiet Revolution marked “a sustained attempt to enhance and strengthen, rather than weaken and ultimately sever, the relationship between Catholicism and Quebec society.”25
While living in Montreal, Peter also wrote about non-Quebec topics, including a couple of short pieces on television. On April 7, 1962, he turned to a medical topic of relevance to him. In “Why Doctors Now Study Your Mind to Treat Your Body,” Peter wrote about psychosomatic medicine, which was a new approach to healing the body by treating the mind. Accidents, some doctors claimed, can be caused by inner turmoil, and so, too, venereal disease. Peter explained that “indiscriminate promiscuity is symptomatic of emotional disorder and therefore VD has clear psychic components.” And “diseases of the skin,” he added, “provide the most straightforward examples of the psychosomatic effect.” He quoted a doctor who claimed that “eczema is a disease which occurs in emotionally insecure individuals.”
Two weeks later Maclean’s carried Peter’s “The New Women in Politics,” a study of Judy LaMarsh and Pauline Jewett, two rising females. On August 11, 1962, Peter’s topic was John Turner, a “man to watch.” In the federal election of June 18, 1962, the thirty-three-year-old bachelor, who had danced with Princess Margaret in 1958, had won the Montreal riding of St-Laurent–St-Georges. Turner would, Peter predicted, be a candidate for prime minister “sometime after 1970.” Peter’s last feature article written and published while in Montreal (Maclean’s, November 17, 1962) was focused on Canada’s young athletes such as Harry Jerome and Bruce Kidd, who would soon be competing in the next Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Peter liked Montreal immensely, he told Mordecai Richler, but was getting tired of saying so. While he didn’t like Montreal smoked meat, Peter informed Richler that he was fond of chopped liver and fresh bread, as well as Quebec’s gallon jugs of wine, which helped him, he joked, “to stay drunk all the time.” Peter may even deserve some of the credit (or blame) for Richler’s articles and books critical of Quebec nationalism. While it was Richler’s idea to write something trenchant about Quebec, it was Peter who encouraged the idea. “Whyinhell,” he wrote to Richler on December 15, 1961, “don’t you write a piece called Why I don’t like French Canadians?”
During his year in Montreal, Peter revelled in the freedoms of the lively, cosmopolitan city. Since the Montreal International Film Festival, founded in 1960, wasn’t allowed to cut films, according to agreements with the films’ international directors, the festival helped to change censorship laws in the province. One night, at 1:00 a.m., Peter was able to view an uncut version of François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim. The city’s bar scene was vibrant, too. One weekend Cathy Perkins, on assignment with Chatelaine, joined Peter for dinner, after which they drifted into a bar where the great rock-and-roller Bo Diddley was performing. With the filmmaker Donald Brittain, Peter attended horse races at Blue Bonnets Raceway.26 While Peter explored, observed, and wrote, Jennie was at home tending to three preschool children: three-year-old Peter C.; two-year-old Alison; and Maria, born in August 1961.
A tender moment shared by Peter and his daughter, Alison, in 1964 as captured by photographer Lutz Dille.
(Courtesy National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa)
