The Trickster: Robert Bourassa and Quebecers, 1990-1992

Terry A. Crowley is an associate professor of history at the University
of Guelph and the author of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality.

Quebec’s pre-eminent political journalist is deliberately provocative
in relating the effects in Quebec of recent unprecedented Canadian
constitutional wrangling. Lisée frames his account as an indictment of
former Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, and portrays Bourassa as a liar
whose duplicity was manifest during the years 1990-92. While providing
the most detailed and revealing account of a historical moment when
public support in Quebec for the province’s sovereignty stood higher
than ever before, Lisée goes awry in posing a hypothesis that was never
really in doubt, and, therefore, not worth examining. His essential
concern is to answer the question: “Did Robert Bourassa, at the
beginning and during the process, conspicuously trick all his partners,
leading them to believe he was open to sovereignty when he wasn’t?”

Given Bourassa’s long-term commitment to federalism and the fact that
Quebec sovereignty was the key plank in the platform of his principal
adversaries, this question is based on a false premise that detracts
seriously from the import of what is otherwise an informative book.
Lisée attempts to answer some of the criticisms of the earlier French
edition of this book, but whether Bourassa is viewed as any more a
trickster than Wilfrid Laurier was a political magician at the turn of
the century will depend ultimately on the general perspective readers
bring to political history.