Quebec firebrand Michel Chartrand dead at 93

MONTREAL – Michel Chartrand, the formidable Quebec labour leader and firebrand who was accused of seditious conspiracy and jailed for four months during the 1970 Quebec October Crisis, died Monday night.

He reportedly died of kidney cancer. He was 93.

A burly man with a bushy moustache, Chartrand resembled a lumberjack and dressed the part. His tirades against capitalism were often as entertaining as they were incendiary. But no one ever doubted Chartrand’s commitment to improving conditions for those unable to fend for themselves.

In his biography, Michel Chartrand: Les Voies d’Un Homme de Parole, author Fernand Foisy uses many nouns and adjectives to describe Chartrand. Among them: aggressive, earthy, cultivated, ferocious, generous, loyal, rebel, subversive and violent.

Chartrand wore every one of the labels proudly.

"He was both monk and pirate," his son Alain once told a reporter. "He would take the shirt off his back for anyone, but if you crossed him, he’d use the same shirt to strangle you."

Joseph Michel Raphael Chartrand was born on Dec 20, 1916, into a well-heeled Outremont family. He was the second last of 14 children in a Quebec civil servant’s family. Chartrand and former prime minister Pierre Trudeau were classmates at College Brebeuf until Chartrand joined the Cistercian monastery in Oka at age 16.

There he took vows of total silence and became known as Brother Marcellin.

While preparing to be a monk, Chartrand learned that his father had been fired from the Quebec Public Works department, where he had worked for 44 years, after revealing details of fraud in government accounts.

"My father was as honest as the day is long, and I was shocked that he didn’t do anything about it . . . ," Chartrand said. "In the monastery, I had time to think about values, about social justice, about crimes against humanity. In short, I had time to to dream about how to build a better country. I knew then that my true calling was to speak out against injustice."

A founding member of the Confederation of Canadian Catholic Workers, Chartrand was also a founding member of the New Democratic Party and of the Confederation of National Trade Unions. He quit the NDP in 1963 over the issue of Quebec sovereignty and started his own Quebec socialist party.

During a speech in Quebec City in October 1969, Chartrand attacked the judicial system and was charged with sedition. Chartrand also became involved with FRAP, the civic movement that tried to unseat former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau. During the 1970 municipal election campaign – which coincided with the October Crisis – Chartrand told a rally that FLQ terrorists had made a mistake by kidnapping British diplomat James Cross.

"They should have kidnapped Jean Drapeau instead," Chartrand shouted.

Chartrand was charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the Quebec government and spent four months in jail. He appealed., and eventually all the charges against him were thrown out of court.

He was predeceased by one of his daughters, Marie-Andree, who was slain in 1971, and by his wife, Simonne, who died in 1993.