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Jacques Parizeau

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Person.png Jacques Parizeau   WikiquoteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(economist, politician)
Jacques Parizeau1.jpg
BornAugust 9, 1930
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DiedJune 1, 2015 (Age 84)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Alma materLondon School of Economics, HEC Montréal, Paris Institute of Political Studies, Sorbonne
ParentsGérard Parizeau
Spouse • Alice Poznanska
• Lisette Lapointe
PartyParti Québécois
Canadian Quebec-politicianand who attended the 1968 Bilderberg

Employment.png Premier of Quebec

In office
September 26, 1994 - January 29, 1996

Employment.png Canada/Leader of the Opposition

In office
September 25, 1989 - September 26, 1994

Employment.png Leader of the Parti Québécois

In office
March 18, 1988 - January 27, 1996

Employment.png MNA for L'Assomption

In office
September 25, 1989 - January 29, 1996

Employment.png MNA for L'Assomption

In office
November 15, 1976 - November 27, 1984

Jacques Parizeau was a Canadian politician. He was advisor to the Quebec premiers Jean Lesage, Daniel Johnson and Jean-Jacques Bertrand in the 1960s and attended the 1968 Bilderberg meeting. He himself became premier for the Parti Québécois from September 1994 to January 1996.

Background

Parizeau was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Germaine (nee Biron) and Gérard Parizeau, from a family of wealth. Gérard Parizeau built one of Quebec’s great fortunes and one of the province’s largest financial firms from a brokerage he established in the 1930s. Jacques' great-grandfather was a founder of the Montreal Chambre de Commerce and his grandfather was a doctor of renown and a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.[1]

As a teenager, Parizeau had radical views and distributed leaflets for Communist Fred Rose's election campaigns. While sympathetic to the Labor-Progressive Party he never joined.[2]

Education

His parents supported bilingualism and sent him to English summer camp. He attended Collège Stanislas, a Roman Catholic private school. He went on to graduate with a PhD from the London School of Economics in London, England, as well as degrees at HEC Montréal, Paris Institute of Political Studies and Faculté de droit de Paris. Because of a prior commitment to return to instruct at HEC, he left England, where career opportunities were offered in British academia. He did an internship with the Bank of Canada in Ottawa, and directed his brightest students to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario for postgraduate studies.[1]

Parizeau's predilection for three-piece, Savile Row suits, and proper manner of speaking French and English, earned him the nickname "Monsieur".[3]

In 1956 he married the Polish-Jewish immigrant Alice Poznanska (1930–1990). He remarried after her death, to Lisette Lapointe in 1992.

Career

A firm believer in economic interventionism, he was one of the most important advisors to the provincial government during the 1960s, playing an important behind-the-scenes role in the Quiet Revolution. He was especially instrumental in the nationalization of Hydro-Québec (a hydro-electric utility) in 1962-1963, the nationalization of the Asbestos Corporation Limited mines in 1982, and worked with Eric Kierans to create the Quebec Pension Plan in 1963-1966.[4]

Parizeau gradually became a committed sovereigntist, and officially joined the Parti Québécois (PQ) on September 19, 1969. In 1970, he became the president of the PQ’s executive council until 1973. He ran for office in the Montreal districts of [Ahuntsic in 1970 and Crémazie in 1973, but lost in both.[5]

After the PQ was elected to office in the 1976 provincial election, which saw Parizeau elected, the new premier, René Lévesque, appointed him as Minister of Finance.[1] Parizeau played an important role in the 1980 Quebec referendum campaign in favour of the government's proposals for sovereignty-association.

As Minister of Finance in Quebec, he was responsible for a number of innovative economic proposals, including the Quebec Stock Savings Plan ("QSSP") and the Fonds de solidarité (Solidarity Fund) FTQ in 1983.[5] As of May 2020, the latter's net assets were $13.8 billion.[6]

Jacques Parizeau was criticized for supporting the Charter of the French Language. This law limits access to English-language public schools to children whose parents didn't receive their education in English in Canada, and was generally opposed by the English-speaking minority.

In 1984, he had a falling out with Lévesque. Lévesque had moved away from pursuing sovereignty to accept a negotiation with the Federal Government. Parizeau opposed this shift, resigned from Cabinet along with many other members, and temporarily retired from politics. Lévesque was taken by surprise with all these retirements and retired soon after.

In 1987, Johnson also left the PQ leadership after losing the1985 election. Parizeau, still a widely liked figure, was elected to replace him as party leader on March 19, 1988.

It was revealed in 2013 that federal Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered in 1987 to appoint Parizeau as an independent Senator in his attempt to secure passage of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement through the upper house as well as part of his strategy to achieve reconciliation with Quebec sovereigntists which led to the Meech Lake Accord.[7][8] Parizeau rejected the offer and went on to become PQ leader and premier.

1995 Independence referendum

In the 1989 election, Parizeau's first as PQ leader, his party did not fare well. But five years later, in the 1994 election], it won a majority government. Parizeau promised to hold a referendum on Quebec sovereignty within a year of his election, and despite many objections, he followed through on this promise. In the beginning, support for sovereignty was only about 40% in the public opinion polls. As the campaign wore on, however, support for the "Yes" side grew larger. This growth halted, however, and Parizeau came under pressure to hand more of the campaign over to the more moderate and conservative Lucien Bouchard, the popular leader of the federal Bloc Québécois party. Parizeau agreed and as the campaign progressed he lost his leadership role to Bouchard.[9]

The "Yes" side lost the referendum by 55,000 votes. In his concession speech, Parizeau said sovereignty had been defeated by "l'argent pis des votes ethniques" ("money and ethnic votes"), and referred to the Francophones who voted Yes in the referendum as "nous" (us) when he said that this majority group was, for the first time, no longer afraid of political independence. He resigned as PQ leader and Quebec premier the next day.

After politics

Parizeau was replaced by Lucien Bouchard as PQ leader and Quebec premier on January 29, 1996. Parizeau retired to private life, but continued to make comments critical of Bouchard's new government and its failure to press the cause of Quebec independence. He owned an estate at his vineyard in France, a farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and a home in Montreal. His biographer is Pierre Duchesne.

At a 2013 meeting of Option nationale, Parizeau stated to the room that the target of sovereignty for Quebec is still realizable, and that the PQ should make the maximum effort to attain it, including using public funds.[10]

Parizeau let his PQ membership lapse and supported the fledgling party Option nationale and its youthful leader Jean-Martin Aussant. After Pierre Karl Péladeau entered provincial politics, Parizeau publicly decried the state of the PQ. In September 2014, after the party's defeat in the general election, he stated that it faced "a field of ruin." During the PQ leadership campaign of 2015, Parizeau told Radio-Canada in his last televised interview that "the party was gradually demolished and it has lost its soul."[11]


 

Event Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
Bilderberg/196826 April 196828 April 1968Canada
Mont Tremblant
The 17th Bilderberg and the 2nd in Canada
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References

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