Robert Bourassa

Robert Bourassa

Robert Bourassa (born July 14, 1933 in Montreal , Québec ; † October 2, 1996 ibid) was a Canadian politician of the Parti libéral du Québec , who was party chairman between 1970 and 1976 and 1983 to 1994, and between 1970 and 1976 and 1985 to 1994 Was Prime Minister of Québec . Bourassa on the one hand supported the separatist tendencies of the Parti libéral in the province of Québec, but on the other hand was critical of the economic ideas of his party.

Life

Member of the House of Commons, Prime Minister 1970 to 1976

As the successor to Jean Lesage , Bourassa was first chairman of the Parti libéral du Québec in 1970

After attending school, Bourassa completed a law degree and after graduating and being admitted to the Québec law firm in 1957, he worked as a lawyer .

As a candidate for the Parti libéral in the elections of June 5, 1966, he was first elected a member of the National Assembly of Québec . As a member of parliament, he campaigned for the Baie James hydropower project , and in December 1969 met Roland Giroux, President of Hydro-Québec , for a working lunch.

Despite his inexperience and relative obscurity, he was elected chairman of the Parti libéral on January 17, 1970 as the successor to former Prime Minister Jean Lesage .

Victory in 1970

As such, he was the top candidate in the elections to the National Assembly on April 29, 1970 and led his party to an election victory against the then ruling Union nationale of Jean-Jacques Bertrand . The Parti libéral was able to provide 72 of the 108 MPs and thus had 22 more MPs than in the 1966 election. The Union nationale, however, lost 39 seats and only had 17 MPs instead of 56 in 1966. The third largest force was the Ralliement créditiste du Québec with twelve seats, while René Lévesque's Parti Québécois (PQ) , who appeared for the first time, won seven seats.

On May 12, 1970, Bourassa succeeded Jean Lesage and at 36 was the youngest Prime Minister in Québec history.

October crisis 1970

A few months after he took office, the October Crisis occurred in 1970 , the largest political crisis in the history of the province of Québec. It was triggered by the kidnapping of the British diplomat James Richard Cross , who was head of the trade delegation in Montreal, and the politician Pierre Laporte , the deputy prime minister and labor minister in the Bourassa cabinet, by the terrorist organization Front de liberation du Québec (FLQ) . This led to the brief imposition of a state of emergency by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and to the dispatch of 10,000 army soldiers to Québec. Civil liberties have been suspended and hundreds of FLQ supporters have been detained without a formal warrant. While the police found Laporte strangled in the trunk of a car, Cross was freed after two months. Subsequent covert operations led to the breakup of the FLQ.

Bourassa was heavily criticized for his crisis management during the October 1970 crisis. In particular, he was accused of leaving the decision on how to proceed too quickly to the federal government in Ottawa in order to undermine his nationalist and left-wing critics.

Economic policy and election victory in 1973

After the October crisis ended, Bourassa and his government focused on the province's economic policy, which included large-scale development and the creation of 100,000 jobs to combat the employment crisis. The focus was on promoting the Baie James hydropower project, which he has supported since 1969. Bourassa presented his plan to the cabinet in March 1971 and recommended that the construction work should be delegated to the American Bechtel Corporation . The government chose April 30, 1971, the anniversary of the inauguration, as the date of the public announcement, as the venue for a party meeting in the Petit Colisée in the provincial capital of Québec . In front of 5,000 people, Bourassa promised that the “project of the century” (projet du siècle) would create 100,000 jobs. According to reports from journalists, the meeting ended with "scenes of indescribable enthusiasm".

The successful economic policy meant that Bourassa and his Parti libéral won an overwhelming victory in the National Assembly elections on October 29, 1973. His party had 102 members of the 110 members of the National Assembly and was thus able to improve its election results by a further 30 members. The Parti Québécois lost one of its seven MPs and now had six seats, while the Union nationale lost its 17 seats and was no longer represented in the National Assembly. The Ralliement créditiste du Québec was the third strongest force in the future, having lost ten of its twelve seats and now only had two seats in the National Assembly.

Electoral defeat in 1976 and retreat from politics for several years

In the following years Bourassa stepped for a special status of Québec within the Constitution of Canada . In 1974, Bourassa signed Bill 22 that made French the official language of the province and restricted the use of English . The Francophonie bill created sensitive tensions between the supporters of the Canadian Federation and the nationalists in Québec.

The official language dispute ultimately contributed to the defeat of the Parti libéral in the elections to the National Assembly on November 15, 1976. The strongest force was the Parti Québécois of René Lévesque, which won 65 seats and was now represented by 71 instead of six members. Bourassa's Parti Libéral became the second strongest force, but lost 76 seats and only had 26 instead of 102 MPs. Under its new party chairman Rodrigue Biron, the Union nationale managed to re-enter the National Assembly, in which it was the third largest parliamentary group to have eleven members. In addition, two non-party members were represented in the National Assembly.

The severe electoral defeat meant that Bourassa resigned his position as party leader four days after the election and was replaced by Gérard D. Lévesque . On November 25, 1976, the election winner René Lévesque finally took over the office of Prime Minister of Québec, while Bourassa largely withdrew from political life for four years.

Prime Minister 1985 to 1993

Victory in 1985

In 1980 Bourassa began to become more politically active again and successfully opposed the Québec referendum sponsored by the Parti Québécois, which called for independence negotiations with the federal government.

As the successor to Gérard D. Lévesque, he was again chairman of the Parti libéral in 1983 and led it as the top candidate to victory in the elections to the National Assembly on December 2, 1985. The party was able to increase its result by 57 seats and now had 99 instead of the previous 42 MPs. The Parti Québécois of Prime Minister Pierre Marc Johnson , who had only succeeded René Lévesque on October 3, 1985, lost 57 seats and had only 23 instead of 80 members. As had been the case since the national assembly elections on April 13, 1981, other parties were no longer represented in the provincial parliament.

Bourassa was then again Prime Minister of Québec on December 12, 1985.

Election victory in 1989 and the Oka crisis with the Mohawk

In the elections to the National Assembly on September 25, 1989, he was able to maintain the supremacy of the Parti libéral, which lost seven seats, but still had a clear absolute majority with 92 of the 125 seats. The Parti Québécois improved slightly and, with 29 MPs, had six more elected representatives than in the last election. The third strongest force was the Equality Party, which for the first time had four MPs.

In 1990, the Oka Crisis erupted in armed clashes between the Mohawk and the Canadian government, which culminated in a shootout between tribesmen and the Quebec Provincial Police, killing one policeman. The trigger was the plan to build a golf course in the Mohawk area. The protests escalated into a two-month road blockade near Oka , near Montreal, Québec. About 40 heavily armed members of the Mohawk Warrior Society were surrounded by 400 Canadian soldiers. The confrontation ended with the promise of negotiations, which, however, only resulted in unsatisfactory solutions. The "Mohawk philosopher", strictly speaking a member of the Seneca , John Mohawk Sotsisowah , stood out as the mediator in the dispute .

Failed Charlottetown, NAFTA Agreement and Withdrawal from Politics in 1994

On August 22, 1992, the agreed First Minister's Conference of among his participation to the most extensive reform of the Constitution Act of 1867 in the so-called agreement of Charlottetown (Charlottetown Accord / Accord de Charlottetown) . This reform provided for a regulation of the representation of Anglo and French Canadians in the highest state organs. Québec was granted quotas and the indigenous peoples' rights of autonomy were recognized and the position of the provinces was strengthened. However, this constitutional reform provided by the Charlottetown Convention was rejected in a referendum on October 26, 1992 by 55 percent of Canadians eligible to vote.

On December 17, 1992, the Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Ottawa signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the USA and Mexico , which came into force on January 1, 1994. Bourassa had previously campaigned for this agreement, which had contributed to the positive reception of this agreement in Canadian politics.

After a second term of more than eight years, Bourassa resigned as Prime Minister on January 11, 1994. His successor was then Daniel Johnson, Jr. , a son of the former Prime Minister Daniel Johnson, Sr. and older brother of the former Prime Minister Pierre Marc Johnson. At the same time, Johnson also took on the role of chairman of the Parti libéral du Québec.

In his honor, the reservoir Réservoir Robert-Bourassa and the hydroelectric power station Robert-Bourassa were renamed after his death in 1996 . In addition, Autoroute 740 Robert-Bourassa is named after him, a seven-kilometer stretch of motorway in the city ​​of Québec .

publication

• L'énergie du Nord. La force du Québec , Libre Expression, Montreal 1985, ISBN 2-89037-252-9 .

Web links

Commons : Robert Bourassa  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Short biography in rulers.org

Background literature

• Una McGovern (Ed.): Chambers Biographical Dictionary , Chambers, Edinburgh, 7th Edition 2002, p. 198, ISBN 0-550-10051-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Canadian Provinces , rulers.org
2. ↑ ^{a b c} The Great Ploetz. The Encyclopedia of World History, Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 35th edition, 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-32008-2 , pp. 1793 f.
3. ↑ Pierre Gravel, Pierre Vennat: Sept mois après la crise d'Octobre: ​​un projet quil fallait lancer en 1971! . In: Roger Leroux (ed.): La Baie James, projet du siècle. La Presse, Montreal 1979, pp. 7-9.
4. ^ John Gattuso (ed.): APA-Guides USA Indian Reservations, pp. 303-304. RV Reise- und Verkehrsverlag GmbH, Munich 1992. ISBN 3-575-21425-5
5. ↑ On the death of John Mohawk Sotsisowah ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Obituary of the Society for Threatened Peoples