RENÉ LÉVESQUE AND HIS CENTENNIAL-

 RENÉ LÉVESQUE AND HIS CENTENNIAL- 
 By Bernard Bujold - 

I was born in a village near René Lévesque's childhood village, New Carlisle, one of the few English-speaking villages in the Gaspé Peninsula. 

René and my mother were both born in 1922. 

I met René Lévesque directly in 1977 when I was a young journalist at the Quebec National Assembly. We were, however, from two different worlds, he who loved alcohol, playing cards and women and I who was at the time a young man barely of age and very naïve about life as I had just come out of my Gaspé Peninsula. For me Quebec City was a very big city, and let's not forget that I had grown up in a presbytery... 

Later, after his death, I would be the first to propose the creation of the René Lévesque Foundation and I wanted Pierre Péladeau senior to be its first president. That was in 1991. René Lévesque's childhood home belonged at the time to an old lady (Georgette Bujold - no relation to me) who wanted to sell it for less than $100,000, negotiable. I had suggested to make a museum of it. 

In the end Pierre Péladeau did not want to get involved in the project. 

René Lévesque was not a politician at heart, but a journalist at heart, a mass communicator who was shy in private. René identified a lot with Americans and loved the New England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont). 

Politically, he had a kind of insecurity in front of his individual ministers, many of whom were intellectual elites. He believed in democracy and debate, whereas in politics you have to impose your leadership behind the scenes. Lévesque was afraid to impose his ideas without debate, unlike, for example, François Legault or Trudeau, both father and son. 

If Lévesque had been more dominant, and less democratic, I am convinced that he could have imposed the separation of Quebec during his first majority mandate in 1976. 

But this judgment is a perception, my perception! 

One thing is certain, Quebec is still part of Canada... 

Happy Centennial Day, my dear René! 

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