Robert Bourassa

Robert Bourassa discusses his experiences as Premier, and distinguishes his own common-market concept of federalism from the Parti Quebecois' idea of a nation-to-nation dialogue based on a referendum on sovereignty-association. (March 1979)

Bourassa would return to power during the Mulroney years, and be a strong partner with the Prime Minister on the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords.

Following Charlottetown's failure by an across-country referendum, Bourassa remained as the sole most active veteran pursuant of constitutional reform in Quebec and Canada, and he pressed on with a post-Patriation settlement for his Province. Before his early and untimely death, he gave serious expression to the idea of instituting a new tier to Canadian governance: a chamber at the federal level giving equal representation to Quebec and to the rest of Canada, wherein both nations could hash out their differences.

The contemporary situation in Canadian politics, with the Bloc Quebecois becoming over the past twenty years the natural governing party of Quebec in Parliament, seems to have borne out to a great degree Bourassa's final vision of Quebec-within-Canada.

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[sheltv100]

My father immigrated to Canada when Bourassa was the premier of Quebec. The French language law drove my father out of Quebec in 1974. Bourassa on the other hand was Quebec's best dressed man, he looked real good in his suit and thick wire glasses in 1970.