Jacques Parizeau

Jacques Parizeau (August 9, 1930June 1, 2015) was a Canadian politician and Québécois economist who was a noted Quebec sovereigntist and the 26th premier of Quebec from September 26, 1994, to January 29, 1996.

Parizeau was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Germaine (née Biron) and Gérard Parizeau, from a family of wealth and privilege.

Gérard Parizeau built one of Quebec’s great fortunes and one of the province’s largest financial firms from a brokerage he established in the 1930s.

Jacques' great-grandfather was a founder of the Montreal Chambre de Commerce and his grandfather was a doctor of renown and a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.

As a teenager, Parizeau had radical views and distributed leaflets for Communist Fred Rose's election campaigns.

While sympathetic to the Labor-Progressive Party he never joined.

His parents supported bilingualism and sent him to English summer camp.

He attended Collège Stanislas, a Roman Catholic private school.

He went on to graduate with a PhD from the London School of Economics in London, England, as well as degrees at HEC Montréal, Paris Institute of Political Studies and Faculté de droit de Paris.

Because of a prior commitment to return to instruct at HEC, he left England, where career opportunities were offered in British academia.

He served an internship with the Bank of Canada in Ottawa, and directed his brightest students to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario for postgraduate studies.

Parizeau's predilection for three-piece, Savile Row suits, and proper manner of speaking French and English, earned him the nickname "Monsieur".

Married to Polish immigrant Alice Poznanska (1930–1990).

Jacques Parizeau was criticized for supporting the Charter of the French Language.

This law limits access to English-language public schools to children whose parents didn't receive their education in English in Canada, and was generally opposed by the English-speaking minority.

A believer in economic interventionism, he was one of the most important advisors to the provincial government during the 1960s, playing an important behind-the-scenes role in the Quiet Revolution.

He was especially instrumental in the nationalization of Hydro-Québec (a hydro-electric utility) in 1962-1963, the nationalization of the Asbestos Corporation Limited mines in 1982, and worked with Eric Kierans to create the Quebec Pension Plan in 1963-1966.

He joked that the Quiet Revolution was essentially carried out by three or four cabinet ministers, two dozen civil servants and 50 chansonniers.

(At the end of his career, he said that he would like to be remembered most for his contributions to the reformation of Quebec.)

Parizeau gradually became a committed sovereigntist, and officially joined the Parti Québécois (PQ) on September 19, 1969.

In 1970, he became the president of the PQ’s executive council until 1973.

He ran for office in the Montreal districts of Ahuntsic in 1970 and Crémazie in 1973, but lost in both.

After the PQ was elected to office in the 1976 provincial election, which saw Parizeau elected in the district of L'Assomption, the new premier, René Lévesque, appointed him as Minister of Finance.

Parizeau played an important role in the 1980 Quebec referendum campaign in favour of the government's proposals for sovereignty-association.

As Minister of Finance in Quebec, he was responsible for a number of innovative economic proposals, including the Quebec Stock Savings Plan ("QSSP") and the Fonds de solidarité (Solidarity Fund) FTQ in 1983.

In 1984, he had a falling out with Lévesque.

Lévesque had moved away from pursuing sovereignty to accept a negotiation with the Federal Government, called Beau Risque.

Parizeau opposed this shift, resigned from Cabinet along with many other members, and temporarily retired from politics.

Lévesque was taken by surprise with all these retirements and retired soon after.

He was replaced by Pierre-Marc Johnson.

In 1987, Johnson also left the PQ leadership after losing the 1985 election.

Parizeau, still a widely liked figure, was elected to replace him as party leader on March 19, 1988.

In the 1989 election, Parizeau's first as PQ leader, his party did not fare well.

But five years later, in the 1994 election, it won a majority government.

Parizeau promised to hold a referendum on Quebec sovereignty within a year of his election, and despite many objections, he followed through on this promise.

In the beginning, support for sovereignty was only about 40% in the public opinion polls.

As the campaign wore on, however, support for the "Yes" side grew larger.

It was revealed in 2013 that federal Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered in 1987 to appoint Parizeau as an independent Senator in his attempt to secure passage of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement through the upper house as well as part of his strategy to achieve reconciliation with Quebec sovereigntists which led to the Meech Lake Accord.

Parizeau rejected the offer and went on to become PQ leader and premier.

As of May 2020, the latter's net assets were $13.8 billion.