PDF Ebook Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin
Certainly, to enhance your life high quality, every e-book Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin will certainly have their specific driving lesson. Nonetheless, having particular recognition will certainly make you feel much more confident. When you really feel something happen to your life, sometimes, reading publication Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin can assist you to make tranquility. Is that your real hobby? Sometimes of course, however occasionally will be uncertain. Your option to review Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin as one of your reading books, can be your proper book to read now.
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin
PDF Ebook Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin. The developed technology, nowadays support everything the human needs. It consists of the everyday activities, works, workplace, entertainment, and much more. One of them is the wonderful web link and computer system. This condition will reduce you to sustain one of your pastimes, checking out routine. So, do you have prepared to read this e-book Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin now?
As one of guide compilations to suggest, this Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin has some solid reasons for you to read. This publication is very ideal with exactly what you require now. Besides, you will additionally like this publication Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin to review since this is among your referred books to review. When getting something brand-new based on encounter, enjoyment, and other lesson, you could use this book Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin as the bridge. Starting to have reading habit can be gone through from different means and from variant sorts of books
In reading Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin, currently you may not likewise do conventionally. In this modern-day age, device and computer will certainly assist you so much. This is the time for you to open up the gizmo as well as remain in this website. It is the ideal doing. You can see the connect to download this Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin right here, cannot you? Just click the web link and negotiate to download it. You can reach purchase the book Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin by on the internet and all set to download. It is very various with the standard method by gong to guide shop around your city.
However, reviewing the book Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin in this site will lead you not to bring the published book anywhere you go. Merely store guide in MMC or computer disk and also they are readily available to read at any time. The flourishing air conditioner by reading this soft data of the Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin can be leaded into something brand-new behavior. So now, this is time to prove if reading could enhance your life or otherwise. Make Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, By Daniel Poliquin it surely function and also get all advantages.
He was the most unlikely leader: straightforward, uninterested in personal wealth, unprepossessing. Yet his charisma affected even those who disliked his political aim to achieve independence for Quebec. Ren� L�vesque was born into a Quebec dominated by the Catholic Church, rural values, and Anglophone control of business. He was part of the 1960s Quiet Revolution that saw the province become a secular society bent on economic success and, for some, political independence. A journalist, war reporter, and television host, L�vesque channelled his communication skills into a political career that encompassed the most tumultuous periods in Canadian history. As founder of the Parti Qu�b�cois, he held a close referendum in 1980 that proved wrenching for Canadian unity and permanently altered the country's political landscape. Acclaimed novelist and translator Daniel Poliquin offers a unique portrait of L�vesque the man and politician, at once affectionate, critical, and incisive.
- Sales Rank: #3458528 in Books
- Published on: 2009-09-22
- Released on: 2009-09-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.13" h x .87" w x 5.29" l, .73 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 240 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
An extraordinary man
By Renee V. Cox
This monograph about Ren� L�vesque is part of a Penguin series called Extraordinary Canadians. The only surprise, and it is momentary, is to find L�vesque included in this list, but he was a Canadian, and he was extraordinary.
Ren� L�vesque, who with a small group of followers founded the Parti Qu�becois (PQ) in the late 1960s and led it to great heights, was born in Campbellton, New Brunswick. This is interesting since New Brunswick has a high Francophone population and is to this day the only province in Canada that has two official languages, English and French. Ren� grew up in the province of Qu�bec, in a town settled by United Empire Loyalists called New Carlisle in the Gaspe Peninsula. As fate would have it, during much of his childhood he had to attend school in English, and this meant that the leader of a separatist party actually spoke much better English than many mainstream Qu�bec politicians such as the Liberals. After the death in September, 1959 of longtime premier and strong man, Maurice Duplessis, who had wielded patriarchal power under the Union Nationale banner (a right-wing party established in 1935), the provincial Liberals, to which L�vesque had first belonged, became the party to beat. L�vesque's new party, which rather than advocating outright secession espoused a sovereignty association, did not become a force overnight, but they made steady inroads and were finally elected in 1976.
This was quite a feat after the revolutionary Qu�bec Liberation Front (FLQ) had inflicted violence and tragedy on prominent people as well as innocent bystanders. In the name of separatism, the FLQ kidnapped James Cross, British trade commissioner in Montreal, who was eventually released, and then the FLQ kidnapped Quebec Liberal Cabinet minister Pierre Laporte, who was not so lucky and died while in their hands. The year before,in 1969, the FLQ bombed the Montreal Stock Exchange, killing a couple of people, and inflicted other apparently random deeds in the name of their somewhat unfocused goals. The FLQ had seen the success (after a long hard struggle) of the Algerians in achieving independence from France, and they chose to go down a similar road.
The leader of the PQ, himself a former Liberal Cabinet minister under Jean Lesage, who always felt he was a democrat first and foremost was bent on reform and not revolution. When his party was elected, L�vesque would provide a check on the more extreme elements of his party. And, in the beginning, the party was squeaky clean and became the model for fiscal accountability (especially in regard to electoral donations) as well as the public acquisition of Hydro Qu�bec, the electric company, which turned out to be a great investment for the Qu�bec taxpayer. In their enthusiasm to take over all the resources, the PQ were less fortunate with their stubborn acquisition of the asbestos industry. They had failed to see the writing on the wall about this soon-to-be banned product. But they paved the way for free public education up to and including high school (previously mainly only the English, who had their own school boards, had sent their children to the higher levels). Duplessis's regime had left education of the Catholic children (read French) up to the church, and the church was not swift to reform some of the feudal aspects of Qu�bec society.
So when the PQ said they stood for good government, it was easy to believe, since most of their reforms, although costly, were welcome and overdue. But they had run on a mandate to hold a referendum on independence. They wrestled long and hard with the phrasing of the loaded question: did Quebecers want to separate from Canada (in a sovereignty association) or did they want to keep the status quo? The PQ were victims of their own success. The nervous electorate voted no. Things were better. They were definitely well on the way to becoming what they called ma�tres chez nous (masters of our own house). Many Qu�becers, although horrified with the FLQ's excesses, sympathized with their goal of independence.
It had been a terrifying time for all Canadians, but especially Qu�bec, and at the behest of the then-Liberal provincial government for federal help, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, a severe action that is still controversial.
The rest of the book follows the gradual decline of L�vesque and his particular PQ government. Under L�vesque, the government had listened to immigrants, such as the Italians, who wanted their children educated in English. Now a new law, Bill 101, would impose what many English felt were draconian measures: new immigrants whose first language was not English would be educated in French. Signs in public places must be in French. There had been a huge exodus of English-speaking people and their money, starting a decade before. Stunned Anglophones would say, "We defeated them, after all." They referred to a closely contested battle 200 years before in Qu�bec in which both the French and English leaders were mortally wounded. This battlefield victory was not going to erase what became known as "the French fact." The French had been in North America since the 1600s. But now the English-speaking Quebecers were getting a taste of their own medicine, whether deserved or not, and many were leaving. To maintain their gains, to keep Qu�bec French, the government felt it had to make French education mandatory for foreign newcomers.
Contextually, Qu�bec was doing what many parts of the world were doing. Call it self actualization. In the United States, an unpopular war led to the rise of the hippie movement, and young men were urging one another to burn their draft cards and to live for the cause of peace. In France there was a violent student riot. People everywhere were questioning the old ways.
L�vesque had resigned his party leadership in a huff, after a dispute with Pierre Trudeau about repatriating the constitution from Britain (purists said it is "patriating," since there was neither a constitution here nor in Britain in the first place). The departing head of the PQ began acting very childishly. He reverted to very public skirt-chasing, and sulking--not a happy denouement for his career, nor for his second marriage to a beautiful woman 20 years his junior. But he wrote his memoirs and achieved a degree of peace himself. He had never liked the provincial capital, Qu�bec City, and he and his wife settled in Montreal, more or less contentedly. He bought a condo. Home ownership for the average Qu�becer had been another goal of the PQ, and L�vesque had heretofore been a renter.
Author Daniel Poliquin, himself a journalist of note, has written a gripping summary, all too brief, of this magnificent politician, but as Poliquin states, there are many other sources from which to read and learn about L�vesque. While brief, the text is not dry. L�vesque possessed tons of that overworked word, charisma. He was a bit of a slob--well, let us say, not a good dresser. He was a chain smoker, and Poliquin says a statue of him in his home town depicts him with his ubiquitous cigarette. (He had shocked onlookers by smoking during a private audience with the Pope.) Of course he liked adulation, but he was unimpressed by many if not most of the usual trappings of office.
When L�vesque died of a heart attack in the late 1980s, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney decreed flags would fly across the nation at half mast. Whatever else the PQ leader had been, he had achieved, and earned, respect.
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin PDF
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin EPub
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin Doc
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin iBooks
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin rtf
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin Mobipocket
Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque, by Daniel Poliquin Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar