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“Cancelling is out of the question. Yes, I’ll be there.” As planned, Lévesque went to the federal-provincial conference set before the election. “Deep down,” he said to those close to him, “I want people to know that I do not want to destroy Canada. I am going to Ottawa in good faith, even though I think it’s a waste of time.” From the first day on, the Quebec delegation was questioned by journalists who hoped at every turn for confrontations between the separatist and the federalist. Lévesque versus Trudeau, the bitter rivals, as they liked to call them. For the prime minister of Canada, the PQ victory was practically a personal defeat. Now, making the best of things, he predicted the Péquiste government would not be able to hold on to power following the November 15 victory.
René Lévesque learned a tough lesson at this first meeting with his counterparts from other provinces. Against all expectations, seven provinces chose to penalize themselves by agreeing to two income tax points instead of four. To journalists seeking his impressions, Lévesque conceded that the inter-provincial alliance was a trap. “The others chose to let us down, even at the risk of losing millions from the federal government.” Lévesque returned from Ottawa disappointed, convinced more than ever that sovereignty was the best solution for Quebec.
He set aside political quarrels and spoke of the upcoming vacation he would take with Corinne Côté. Yielding to his companions insistent demands, he was going out openly with her.
“You’re not afraid what people will say?” a friend asked him. “After all, you’re still not divorced.”
René Lévesque didn’t worry about his reputation as a skirt chaser. He was uninfluenced by scruples, hated moralizing and worrying about gossip. Being premier would not change his attitude. He loved Corinne, whom he had met eight years earlier at the launch of his book Option Québec (An Option for Quebec). Among the guests jockeying for autographs, he had noticed a young Laval University student originally from Alma. Born into a Quebec nationalist family, Corinne Côté admired René Lévesque. He had left a well-established political party to begin a thrilling adventure, not knowing whether his courageous move held a future. Among the people congratulating him, Lévesque was entranced by the dark eyes of this woman twenty years his junior. The seducer was seduced. “Call me,” he had written to her after seeing her again at a dinner with friends. What began as a fling, little by little developed into a love affair spanning nearly twenty years. He who had never let himself fall victim to love was now contemplating splitting up with his wife Louise. He would be the first Quebec head of state to divorce. And he didn’t give a hoot about the gossip.
To be witty or provoke people, René Lévesque considered himself a Yankeebécois. He liked the U.S., was fascinated by its history, its people, its geography. As soon as he had a chance, he would rush to the Atlantic coast where the ocean and scenery reminded him of his childhood in the Gaspé. Far from being a threat, he saw the United States as a democracy whose political institutions protected against excess. He admired the great dream of equality held by the founders of the American nation and personified by presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was his hero. The New Deal slogan, We have nothing to fear but fear itself would serve as the point of departure for his sovereigntist manifesto Option Québec. For Lévesque, Europe was far away. On the other hand, America was on the same continent. For better or for worse. He was also thrilled, at the beginning of his mandate, to receive an invitation to give a talk to members of the Economic Club of New York. Robert Bourassa had had to wait three years before being extended the same privilege! But Lévesque was not taken in by the honour: the Wall Street financiers seemed quite impatient to meet the leader of a party that wanted the separation of Quebec.
René Lévesque worked on his speech until late in the night, seeking the right idea, the words that would strike a chord with his hosts. He scratched out a sentence that he had left unfinished. No one else was allowed to look at his speech. When it came to explaining his ideas, he once more became the journalist of the program that had made him famous. René Lévesque forever remained the star of Point de mire.
Before leaving for New York, those accompanying him insisted on reading his speech. “We have to modify certain expressions, nuance things.” When the premier heard of this order, he categorically refused to change so much as a comma. He refused to address the bankers of the Economic Club any differently from the way he had always addressed Quebec voters. On January 24, an airplane landed on a private field in New Jersey, with the Quebec delegation on board. The next day, the Quebec premier was to meet powerful America, the big boys on Wall Street. René Lévesque was nervous and impatient. He had to prove that his government was a credible player in the eyes of the most imposing empire in the world, to show that the Parti Québécois could hold its own on the North American political scene. There was a full schedule of meetings. In a few hours, he would meet about twenty lenders holding millions of dollars, investors that he had to convince. Lévesque grumbled to himself: “If it were only that!” In the evening, receptions and official handshakes would follow. His personal hell.
“Do they all think the same thing?”
They were rebroadcasting the program in which journalists analysed the premier’s visit to the Economic Club.
René Lévesque had committed the error he should have avoided. He had given a disappointing speech! It was the wrong way to speak to the Americans. He turned off the television, lit a cigarette. Were they right in reproaching him for having drawn a parallel between the sovereignty of his country and the thirteen American colonies’ struggle for independence? “It was an awkward comparison,” Claude Morin remarked to him. “I said to change certain paragraphs.” Lévesque was not the type to blame his blunders on others. “Everyone knows that I write my speeches alone.” He remained convinced that he was right to mention 1776. Even if the historical context was different from Quebec’s, he thought, the people aspiring to freedom displayed the same courage. Drawing inspiration from historian Alexis de Tocqueville, Lévesque maintained that Quebecers were hostage to a political system unfavourable to them. Certainly the parallel was awkward, but he had to find an image for his audience that would hit home. He had managed to shake them up.
“There were one thousand six-hundred guests in the Hilton Ballroom; I’ll never believe that they’re all as fanatical as the Toronto clique.”
Monday morning at eight o’clock, Lévesque was at his Quebec City office before the others. The project he was most afraid of was the thorny language law that had to be passed as quickly as possible. He feared that the anglophone community and its representatives who moved in the same circles of high finance would band together against his government. A language law! Of all the Péquistes, Lévesque was one of the most reticent to regulate such a touchy issue. Even though he wished Quebec to be as French as Ontario was English, he wanted anglophones to keep their institutions and their rights. Voting on a language law was putting a bandage on a wound rotting away inside. “I want Quebec sovereignty so as to put an end to these quarrels senselessly dividing us.”
Archives nationales du Québec à Montréal/E6, S7, SS1, P771944, #16
