After Levesque: the anglo-bourgeoisie
CANADA therefore is almost indistinguishable from the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), as was demonstrated in the last elections with mutual accusations of who stole whose platform from whom. In this context, many militants are looking for an alternative to the PQ and PLQ to express their political rewrites history aspirations. The NDP-Q presents itself as this alternative and, given the historical similarities on progressive social programs, it has attracted a number of people, some of whom are or were PQ members.
FIFTY THOUSAND people filed past Rene Levesque's coffin in the old Palace of Justice. Ten thousand waited on Notre Dame Street just to watch the departure of the hearse after the funeral. Crying, applauding and singing, the popular response to the death of Rene Levesque has been massive in Quebec.
They saw in him the symbol of a new pride in themselves, pride in being Quebecois. His death, on
Sunday, November 1, is felt as a great loss of "un bon gars" (a good man). No other current politician was seen in the same light, as a truly sincere and honest person.
The call by the Quebec government for national mourning only reflected this popular response.
SUSAN CALDWELL
T THE SAME TIME, the media
A reported the responses of all the parliamentary leaders in Ottawa.
Brian Mulroney spoke of a man who "followed a single dream and struggle for the full emancipation of Quebec". John
Turner joined the chorus in praising Levesque. Ed Broadbent described him as responsible for "making French the dominant language in the life of Quebec". There seems to be a "rehabilitation" of Rene Levesque as a "good Canadian". The fact that less than ten years ago he was seen by English Canadian politicians as the greatest
Rene Levesque (DR)
danger to the Canadian state seems to have been forgotten. With the Meech Lake Accord [see /V 124], Quebec is now simply a province much like any other in the Canadian federal state, so the attitude is "let bygones be bygones" and bury that whole episode in Canadian history.
This sort of double vision is in part due to the nature of the Parti Quebecois (PQ) itself, which under Levesque was a bourgeois nationalist party with a progressive social democratic view of the state and its relationship to the unions. The PQ was built and based upon a rise in nationalist and working class struggles in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. It was the Sovereignty-Association wing of Rene Levesque and company that had power, as it progressively distanced itself from workers' aspirations, crushing union struggles - including the introduction of Bill 111 in the Common Front of 1983 - and softened and finally jettisoned its position on independence.
Ed Broadbent's more moderate answer is a concrete reflection of the situation of his party provincially, the National Democratic Party-Quebec (NDP-Q), and its relationship to the Parti Quebecois. The "Toupin Affair" has shown most clearly that the NDP-Q is recruiting from the members of the PQ. Toupin essentially wanted to formalize this, to allow for provincial membership in the PQ while having federal membership in the NDP. The PQ under Pierre Marc Johnson has disassociated itself from the independence project, and
This situation was highlighted by both the "Toupin Affair" in the NDP and the call for a leadership change by Gerald Godin within the PQ on October 29, two days before Rene Levesque's death. Godin, who is one of the former ministers within the PQ cabinet and one of the most popular PQ politicians, sees that the only way to distinguish the PQ from the NDP-Q is on the independence question. He is hoping to transfer the leadership to Jacques Parizeau, who left the PQ when it dropped the independence plank from its platform in 1985.
At the moment, neither the PQ nor the NDP-Q respond to the needs of the working class, feminist and youth organizations. The PQ ha a clear history of being anti-labour, which was the basis of its defeat in the last provincial elections. The NDP-Q must face the reality that any progressive movement in Quebec must have a clear position in support of self-determination for Quebec, including political independence. The NDP-Q congress at the end of November will have to take clear positions on both this political question and its organizational consequences for the relationship of the NDP-Q and the federal NDP.
### Fight for national aspirations
A related issue is the relationship of the Quebec union centrals to the NDP-Q, which is far from settled, as only the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ) has any formal position of support for the federal NDP. The same FTQ, however, is the strongest PQ supporter of the three Quebec centrals. There is discussion within the Teachers' Federation about affiliation to the NDP, but this could lead to a split in that central. So while activists are looking for a political organization through which their demands could be made, there is no ready answer.
Rene Levesque's death has focused attention on these problems. The federal politicians' response is to try and integrate him, and what he symbolized, into an "all Canadian" perspective. On the other hand, the massive popular support in Quebec demonstrates that the national aspirations of the Quebecois have not disappeared — nor have they been satisfied. *
[From the November/December 1987 issue of Socialist Challenge, newspaper of the Fourth Internationalist Alliance for So- 23 cialist Action.) December 21, 1987 • International Viewpoint