QUEBEC -- Former Quebec premier Jean Lesage, father of the 'Quiet Revolution' which ushered in a host of profound social and political reforms with lasting impact on the province and Canada, died Friday. He was 68.
Liberal leader Claude Ryan, who only last spring lured the popular Lesage out of political retirement to stump for the ultimately victorious federalist cause in the May independence referendum, announced the death in the National Assembly.
The silver-haired Lesage had undergone therapy for throat cancer. He died in his Quebec City home at 9 a.m. EST, a member of the family said.
'It was all very sudden,' the family member said. 'He still had a lot of strength although he was convalescing.'
A spokesman said Lesage's body will be laid in state throughout today and Sunday at the National Assembly for relatives, friends and admirers to pay their last respects to the veteran of both federal and provincial politics.
Cardinal Maurice Roy will conduct a state funeral service for Lesage at the Quebec Cathedral Monday before a private cremation later in the day.
Deputy premier Jacques-Yvan Morin will attend the service with other Parti Quebecois cabinet ministers in lieu of Premier Rene Levesque, who currently is on an official visit to Belgium and France.
Ryan said Lesage, who served as premier during a turbulent 1960-66 period after 13 years in federal politics, said recent treatment reports had been 'encouraging.' His deprived Quebec of one of its 'most distinguished sons.'
'I think he was one of the political leaders who contributed most to the growth in both of Quebec and Canada,' Ryan said. 'He was one of the most brilliant politicians in Canada's 113 years of history.'
'
Premier Rene Levesque, drafted from journalism into the Lesage cabinet before splitting to form the separatist Parti Quebecois, sent his condolences to Mrs. Lesage from Belgium where he is on an official visit.
Levesque said Lesage wrote 'many pages, if not a whole chapter' in the history of Quebec.
Lesage's body will lie in state at the assembly over the weekend before a state funeral service Monday conducted by Cardinal Maurice Roy at the Cathedral of Quebec.
'He showed in his social programs that the Quebec government could act for the benefit of the Quebec people,' said Trudeau, who once fought the same political elements as Lesage.
'We have an enormous debt to Mr. Lesage because he was realy at the origin of transforming Quebec into a modern society.'
Premier Rene Levesque, drafted from journalism into the Lesage cabinet before splitting to form the separatist Parti Quebecois, sent his condolences to Mrs. Lesage from Belgium where he is on an official visit.
Levesque said Lesage wrote 'many pages, if not a whole chapter' in the history of Quebec.
Lesage's body will lie in state at the assembly over the weekend before a state funeral service Monday conducted by Cardinal Maurice Roy at the Cathedral of Quebec.
The silken-tongued Lesage, a one-time criminal lawyer, entered federal politics at the age of 33, handily winning the Quebec riding of Montmagny L'Islet for the Liberals of then prime minister MacKenzie King.
He rose from the backbenches to become parliamentary secretary in the department of external affairs, then resources and economic development minister and became the first minister responsible for northern affairs under Louis St. Laurent.
Breaking a tradition that no federal Quebecer ever returned to become a political leader in the province, he returned to provincial politics to spearhead the Liberal Party's ouster in 1960 of the Union Nationale. The UN's stranglehold on Quebec had begun to disintegrate two years earlier with the death of the autocratic premier Maurice Duplessis.
Sworn in as Quebec's 19th premier July 5, 1960, Lesage quickly set about freeing the state from a stultifying influence by the Roman Catholic Church, established the province's first education department and introduced sweeping social reforms.
The reforms during Lesage's rule, known as the 'Quiet Revolution,' touched on almost every facet of the province's life and were exemplified by Lesage's determination to make Quebecers 'maitre chez nous' - 'masters in our own house.'
Apart from modernizing the education system he expanded social services, built highways and established new programs to attract industry in a province still heavily influenced by agriculture.
He shared one of his his greatest achievements with Levesque who, as natural resources minister in 1962, nationalized private power companies were nationalized under the crown Hydro-Quebec.
Lesage's opponents claimed his leadership provided a springboard for Levesque's separatist Parti Quebecois.
He vehemently denied the charge during the spring referendum when both he and Quebec's only other former premier, Robert Bourassa, were instrumental in rallying Quebecers against independence.
'There's no relation of cause to effect between the attitudes we adopted, the legislation that was passed when I was there, and the separatist movement,' Lesage said at his last public appearance in April.
Many considered Lesage's finest achievement to be a hard-line and precendent-setting stand on provincial autonomy in social matters such as education, welfare and housing.
Whatever his reforming zeal in Quebec, Lesage consistently stressed he was a Canadian first and last, although separatists grew more vocal and active during his regime.
'If we pretend we are nothing but Quebecers and not Canadians,' he said in 1965, 'I will not be the premier of a Quebec that does not wish to be a part of Canada.'
Lesage is survived his wife Corinne and four children.
