POLI 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Claude Ryan, Le Devoir, Real Presence Of Christ In The Eucharist
17 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
JOHN PARISELLA (03.11)
- Currently senior advisor, business outreach in the MTL office of National
o National is the largest public relations consultancy firm in Canada
- National’s clients benefit from his extensive experience in public/para-public/private sectors
- He’s held numerous positions in the public sphere
o Chief of staff for QC premiers (Robert Bourassa and Daniel Johnson)
o Author, business manager, political analyst
o QC’s delegate General in NYC for a few years
o More recently, he was executive director of the major fundraising campaign for HEC MTL
o Member of the Order of Canada in 2017 & officer of the National Order of QC in 2016
o Named personality of the top 20 diversity award at the Grand Prix Mosaique de l’Université
du QC in 2014
What is the r/s b/w QC and the rest of the world?
- QC: the only province having representation in 29 different areas across the world
o We touch the US, Mexico, Europe, Asia and Latin America
o Delegations
▪ General delegations: very senior post, more resources
• Ex: NYC, Paris, Brussels, Tokyo, Mexico, Mexico City
▪ Delegations (normal ones)
o Government bureaus
▪ Usually in the geographic area where there is a general delegation
▪ A bureau’s boss is the General Delegate
▪ Washington is a bureau in the U.S.
▪ There is one in Philadelphia
o Antennas
▪ Smaller staff but they respond to the largest office close to them
▪ Chicago: delegation
▪ NY: general delegation
▪ So in Philadelphia, the boss is in NY
▪ And in Atlanta, the boss is in Chicago
▪ In LA, there is a delegate (not a delegate general) – the office in Texas reports to it
- The 29 offices are very widespread, very sophisticated
- No other province has got anywhere close to that
o There is no such thing as a Delegate General in the 9 other provinces
- Usually, these offices are stand-alone (have their own address)
- Any other province that has an office outside of their own province is usually integrated into a
Canadian embassy
- QC is really unique
o The best illustration of QC’s uniqueness & nation: what we do internationally
- Some of these representations are referred to as: delegations, general delegations, gov’t bureaus and
antennas
Background
• French became a language of friendship, language of district (born and grew up in Rosemont)
• Rosemont
o Working class district
o One of the older districts in MTL
• Rosemont → very diverse community
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Background had a lot of influence on many things following in his life
• He was always immersed in diversity
• After teaching, he went into politics
o First experience in politics: dealing w/ referendum of 1980 where the PQ wanted to negotiate
QC’s withdrawal from the Canadian federation (we used to say separation)
o Then he stayed involved in QC politics w/ the PLQ. Leaders he worked under were:
▪ Claude Ryan
• Leader of the “no” forces in the referendum
• Journalist for Le Devoir
• He became leader of PLQ & wins the referendum but lost the election 11
months later
▪ Robert Bourassa (only real comeback in QC politics)
• P was a candidate in 1985 and he lost
• Bourassa was a candidate in 1985 and he lost
• But the party won so he became premier and got elected in the bi-election
• He asked P to become his Director General of the PLQ
• They became very good friends, collaborators
• Ended up working for him as chief of staff
• When he retired, his successor was Daniel Johnson
▪ Daniel Johnson
• Worked for him for a couple of months as chief of staff
• Then P went to private sector in the area of advertising but also as Chief Coordinator of the 1994
election campaign for the PLQ
• 2007: Charest gov’t won the election but lost its majority
o Charest asked himself: should I stay? A lot of people said: “It’s time for you to go”.
o In 2007, P got a call that said: the PM wants to see you
o He met w/ Charest 6 days later
o P decided to be a part of Charest’s volunteer group of advisors (2 advisors)
o They ended up re-positioning Charest. His poll numbers went up from 15% to 25% in 2
months. 6 months later, Charest wins the vote of confidence in his party.
Thoughts on Quebec
- QC is a place where we’ve had referenda on the future of QC. In many places in the world, this kind
of exercise would lead to civil war (Catalonia)
- 80% FR-speaking, 8% English-English, rest is cultural communities, some of which have integrated
more into English schools & communities, but since Bill 101, they’ve integrated into the FR sector
- MTL = most trilingual city in the Americas
- QC is probably the most int’l province in all of the country
- When we talk about QC and its international relations, the starting point is
1. Our federal system
o Federalism in CA, US, Mexico (the 3 nations of the free trade agreement are federalist)
o The most prosperous state in Europe is a federal state: Germany
o Our federal system has two levels of gov’t.
▪ We have a list of powers under art. 91 that are federal powers. Under art. 92, you
have a list of powers that are provincial.
▪ Any power they couldn’t think of in 1867 would automatically go to the federal
gov’t: meant that there was a preponderance to making it stronger than the individual
provinces
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
