QUEBEC AFFAIRS
Who knows how Lucien Bouchard will be remembered by biographers and historians fifty years hence?
Will he be accorded the saintly stature of a Levesque, who was anything but a saint in real life?
Or the political mastermind mantle being stitched for Robert Bourassa, though his miscalculations tainted his two runs as premier?
What about Maurice Duplessis, who is being steadily upgraded from corrupt despot to visionary rogue?
Certainly Bouchard will not be subjected to the treatment posterity has accorded Adelard Godbout, Quebec's premier during the turbulent 1939-44 wartime period.
Godbout is considered Quebec's forgotten premier -- this in a place with the official motto je me souviens -- and he's forgotten largely because he was labeled and treated as a traitor in his day.
Fortunately for Godbout's legacy, his illustrious great-nephew, author, and film-maker Jacques Godbout, has not forgotten the life and times of Oncle Adelard. Godbout, famous for his embracing of controversial topics, has just released his latest documentary, Traite ou patriote (Traitor or Patriot), which intends to cast light -- admittedly a positive one -- on the tarnished reputation of his kin.
The documentary also examines the wartime years in Quebec where, history has shown there was shame a-plenty to go around, notably overt support from some corners for Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini.
Adelard Godbout's apparent treason stems from his refusal to mount the barricades against conscription and, worse, his acceptance of the federal government's intrusion into provincial jurisdiction through the unemployment insurance program. In short, Godbout was painted as a puppet of Mackenzie King's Liberals, propped up against the surging nationalism of Maurice Duplessis.
To begin with, Godbout was an unlikely and reluctant candidate for leader of Quebec. A farm boy and agronomist by training, he was not cut from the same slick, urban cloth as most of his contemporaries, including the scandal-stained premier he replaced, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau.
Godbout nearly had to be coerced into taking over from Taschereau to lead the fractured and fatigued Liberals to the slaughter against the crusading Duplessis in the 1936 election. By all appearances Godbout and the Liberals were out of the picture for the duration while Duplessis consolidated his forces and his grip on the province.
That all changed when Duplessis, obsessed with the then-dim prospect of conscription, called an election on September 25, 1939, exactly two weeks after Canada had declared war on Germany. Though Godbout himself was not for conscription per se, he steered his campaign away from the issue and managed to stir up enough pools of opposition to Duplessis to stage a thoroughly stunning victory.
According to Conrad Black's biography of Le Chef [Duplessis], the defeat was probably a good thing for him since it compelled him to quit drinking and refocus his energies. For Godbout, however, his upset victory pinned him firmly between the groundswell of opposition to conscription in Quebec and the expectations of his Liberal backers in Ottawa who were in a pickle on the issue.
Interestingly, as described in the late Dale Thomson's superb biography of Louis St. Laurent, Mackenzie King offered Godbout an easy way out of his bind. In the fall of 1941, King all but begged Godbout -- remember, this is the sitting premier of Quebec -- to come to Ottawa to replace Ernest Lapointe, his Quebec lieutenant, who had just died.
Godbout repeatedly rebuffed King's pleas, claiming he was not comfortable enough in English and that he was needed in Quebec. King gave up and recruited instead Quebec City lawyer Louis St. Laurent, a man with a sterling reputation as a corporate lawyer, but no political experience.
Godbout stayed on in Quebec City, where, according to great-nephew Jacques, he managed to dodge the howls of criticism (some fired by one Pierre Trudeau, longtime friend Jacques Godbout notes) of his wishy-washy stand on conscription, to bring in a series of reforms ranging from the creation of Hydro-Quebec, granting the vote to women, and making education mandatory until age 16.
As for the employment insurance incursion, one could argue that Godbout had little choice but to accept the program since the federal government amended the constitution to make it happen. In the end, Quebecers benefited from the program as much as any Canadians.
Jacques' Godbout's documentary has been released by the National Film Board in French and English. Lucien Bouchard should have such a great-nephew.
Copyright © 2000 Peter Black/Log Cabin Chronicles/09.00 |
