QUEBEC – At a ceremony Monday night to mark the 50th anniversary of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, Premier Jean Charest presented commemorative medals to 50 leaders in the period of rapid social and economic change, mostly following the June 22, 1960, election of the Liberal government of Jean Lesage.
Of the total, 31 received the award posthumously, including former premiers Lesage, Daniel Johnson, René Lévesque and Paul Sauvé, who was briefly premier in 1959, following the death of Maurice Duplessis, the conservative premier who dominated Quebec in the 1950s.
Jacques Parizeau, who went on to become a Parti Québécois premier, received the award as one of those who initiated the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, made Hydro-Québec the province’s monopoly utility and created other public-sector, or Crown, corporations.
Others who participated in creating Quebec’s public-sector institutions, and received the medal, were Michel Bélanger, Guy Coulombe, Robert Boyd, Guy Coulombe, Roland Giroux and André Marier.
There are eight former ministers in the 50, including Claude Castonguay, considered the father of Quebec medicare, Paul Gérin-Lajoie, Eric Kierans, the only anglophone honoured, Marie-Claire Kirkland, the first woman elected to the Quebec assembly, Claude Morin and Claude Ryan.
Jean Marchard, a Quebec labour leader, and Gérard Pelletier, a newspaper editor, became ministers in that period in Ottawa.
Others on the list were academics in various fields, journalists, as well as educators and mandarins, who initiated the educational and health reforms that transformed Quebec society.
The full list:
François-Albert Angers, Michel Bélanger, Gérard Bergeron, Roch Bolduc, Robert Boyd, Thérèse Forget Casgrain, Claude Castonguay, Guy Coulombe, Jean-Paul Desbiens, Jean Deschamps, Robert Després, Gérard Dion, Fernand Dumont, Jean-Charles Falardeau, Gérard Filion, Guy Frégault, Jacques Genest, Paul Gérin-Lajoie, Roland Giroux, Eric Gourdeau, Daniel Johnson, Eric Kierans, Marie-Claire Kirkland, Louis Laberge, Georges-Émile Lapalme, André Laurendeau, Jean-Marc Léger, Jean Lesage, Georges-Henri Lévesque, René Lévesque, Jean Marchand, André Marier, Roger Marier, Pierre Martin, Yves Martin, Claude Morin, Gérard Nepveu, Robert Normand, René Paré, Alphonse-Marie Parent, Roland Parenteau, Jacques Parizeau, André Patry, Gérard Pelletier, Louis-Philippe Pigeon, Marcel Rioux, Guy Rocher, Claude Ryan, Paul Sauvé and Arthur Tremblay.
For more information: revolutiontranquille.gouv.qc.ca.
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