Robert Bourassa

I

Introduction

Robert Bourassa (1933-1996), premier of the province of Québec, Canada, from 1970 to 1976 and from 1985 to 1994. Bourassa led Québec’s Liberal government during a period marked by growing separatist sentiment and constitutional crises. A bilingual French Canadian, he promoted French Canadian interests while remaining a staunch proponent of Canadian unity.

II

Early Life and Career

Robert Bourassa was born in Montréal on July 14, 1933. His father was a government clerk and died when Bourassa was a teenager. Despite his family’s modest means, Bourassa managed to receive an excellent education. A superior student, he obtained a law degree in 1956 from the Université de Montréal and was admitted to the Québec Bar the following year. He subsequently earned M.A. degrees from the University of Oxford in England and Harvard University in the United States. He was a fiscal adviser to the federal government—first for Revenue Canada and then for the Department of Finance—and an economics professor at the University of Ottawa.

In 1966 he was elected to the Québec legislature. Although young and relatively unknown, he made a successful bid to succeed Jean Lesage as leader of the Liberal Party of Québec in 1970. During the 1970 elections, Bourassa projected the image of an economist possessing the expertise needed to help remedy the province’s stagnant economy and soaring unemployment. He led the Liberals to victory in the elections. At age 36 he became the youngest premier in Québec’s history. Bourassa was reelected in 1973, but he was defeated in 1976 by the Parti Québécois, under René Lévesque. He became premier again in 1985.

III

First Premiership

During his first period as premier, Bourassa worked to promote economic growth in Québec. He encouraged the development of the province’s enormous hydroelectric resources, spearheading the massive James Bay Project. But Bourassa was severely tested on other fronts.

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Six months after assuming office, Bourassa was confronted with the October Crisis. A separatist terrorist organization, the Front de Libération du Québec, kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross and kidnapped and killed Québec labor minister Pierre Laporte. Bourassa asked the federal government for assistance, and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau declared martial law, suspending many civil liberties in Québec. While polls indicated that most Québec residents supported Bourassa’s hardline opposition to the terrorists, some criticized him for ceding control of the crisis to the federal government.

In 1974 Bourassa successfully promoted Bill 22, which made French the sole official language of Québec. The bill also limited access to English-language schools and expanded the use of French in the workplace. It was intended to pacify the growing movement of people who wanted Québec to secede from Canada and become independent. Although many Québec Francophones claimed that the bill was too weak, Québec Anglophones and other ethnic groups were infuriated that the government had abandoned linguistic equality. The bill also increased tensions between Bourassa and Trudeau.

During Bourassa’s first period in office, he was regularly challenged by Trudeau. Bourassa supported keeping Canada united and was opposed to Québec independence, but he wanted special status for Québec. At a 1971 constitutional conference in Victoria, British Columbia, Bourassa vacillated on whether to accept a new constitutional agreement for Canada. After demanding a special status for Québec, Bourassa withdrew his government’s support a week later. Trudeau perceived Bourassa’s argument for increased decentralization of federal powers and greater provincial autonomy as a lukewarm defense of federalism.

After his 1976 defeat, Bourassa resigned from the Liberal leadership and spent time in Brussels studying the European Union. He returned to Québec with a new passion for federalism, believing that if Europe with all its diversity could be united, then the problems threatening to divide Canada could surely be resolved. In 1980 Québec held a referendum asking voters to give the provincial government a mandate to negotiate with the federal government the terms for a sovereignty-association arrangement. Bourassa played an active role as champion of the successful “No” side during the referendum campaign. He regained leadership of the Liberal Party in 1983 and led the party to victory in the 1985 and 1989 elections.

IV

Second Premiership

During Bourassa’s second period in office, he was more successful in managing his party and the province as a whole. He had gained political maturity. Still, he experienced great frustration in conducting Québec’s relations with the rest of Canada although he now had an ally in Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

In 1982 Canada patriated its constitution, bringing it under Canadian, rather than British, control and adding a charter of individual rights. But Québec refused to sign the new constitution. Bourassa proposed that Québec would sign the constitution if certain changes, including increased provincial powers and recognition of Québec’s special status as a “distinct society,” were adopted. In June 1987 Bourassa entered into an agreement with the other premiers and Mulroney for a package of reforms called the Meech Lake Accord, which incorporated Bourassa’s proposals. The accord failed to secure the required approval of all ten provincial legislatures and, in the wake of its collapse, support for independence in Québec soared. Had Bourassa wanted to lead Québec out of Canada, he probably would have been successful, but this was not his intention. Instead he continued to fight for constitutional reform and was instrumental in negotiating the 1992 Charlottetown Accord, which was rejected by Canadians in a federal referendum. Battling skin cancer since 1990, Bourassa resigned in January 1994 and died in October 1996.

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