by D. Vogt

Created on: February 07, 2010

Jacques Parizeau (1930-) is a Quebec separatist today best remembered for his brief time as premier of the province of Quebec, from 1994 to 1996, during which he oversaw the second and (so far) final of the Quebec sovereignty referendums. In that referendum, the sovereignty side lost very narrowly; controversial and allegedly racist remarks made by Parizeau shortly after the outcome spelled the end of his political career.

* Education and the 1960s *

As with most people of his generation (although this was one of the last, since education was secularized during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s), Parizeau received a Roman Catholic education during his upbringing, at Stanislas College. Unlike most of those in his generation in the province, however, he then went on to study in the heart of the British empire, at the London School of Economics. Parizeau achieved his PhD (doctoral degree) in economics before returning to his province in time for the Quiet Revolution, in which he played a notable if not leading role.

In a sense, then, this places Parizeau - and his later agitation for Quebec independence - in the context of a considerable tradition of colonial activists who emerged as leaders in decolonization movements after being educated in Britain, including Mahatma Gandhi and Jomo Kenyatta. Of course, in Parizeau's case the situation was somewhat different: Canada was already independent, although Quebec had always had an uneasy bargain with the rest of Confederation and Quebec nationalists were beginning to reassert themselves in the heady atmosphere of the 1960s.

In any case, Parizeau proceeded to make a name for himself as a government advisor, assisting with the establishment by the government of the publicly owned Quebec Provincial Plan (the provincial counterpart to the national Canada Pension Plan) as well as assisting in the key nationalizations of electrical power (forming Hydro-Quebec) and the asbestos mines (forming Asbestos Corporation). Whether he had already determined, as he would later declare, that the future of Quebec must be one of national sovereignty and cultural independence is unknown; what is certain is that his views certainly would have leaned in that direction by the time he entered politics as a member of the fledgling Parti Quebecois in 1969.

* Into Politics *

The Quebec independence movement of the 1960s and 1970s was far more radicalized than its somewhat stripped-down survivor today; the following year, the legitimacy of the

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