Years of Impatience, 1950-1960

Margaret Conrad is a history professor at Acadia University and editor
of They Planted Well: New England Planters in Maritime Canada.

When Pierre Trudeau, Jean Marchand, and Gerard Pelletier joined Lester Pearson’s government in 1965, it was a major event in the history of Canadian federalism. For this reason, the appearance of Gerard Pelletier’s political memoirs of the 1950s, a decade which he rightly argues “programmed decisively” the events of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, is also an important event. Pelletier tells his story with the wit, warmth, and wisdom expected of a man who spent so much of his working life in journalism. And, as might be expected, there are delightful character sketches of Trudeau, Marchand, and Lévesque as well as devastating insights into Duplessis and his regime, which Pelletier contends “held back for a quarter of a century Quebec’s entry into the modern world.” Pelletier and his friends systematically chipped away at this regime, seeking a conquest of power rather than the government, creating a social policy rather than a political plan. The ideology which informed this secular mission Pelletier cleverly renders as dialogue among the intellectual elite of journalists, university professors, and union leaders who were his friends. It makes easy reading — perhaps, too easy. Some will be disappointed that Pelletier could not tell us more about himself or offer a revisionist interpretation. The events he chronicles — Asbestos, Cite Libre, the strike at Radio-Canada — have already been so deeply etched into our historical consciousness by journalists, film makers, and historians that the retelling seems to offer little but detail. One suspects that Pelletier’s earlier experiences with Catholic youth movements and his careers in journalism and federal politics will offer more surprises for the informed reader, and the appearances of future volumes of his life story will be eagerly awaited.