As Canada celebrates its 150th birthday, a man who spent much of his political life fighting for an independent Quebec will be honoured thanks to some major funding from the federal government.
The Department of Canadian Heritage has announced that it will help fund the Espace Rene-Levesque in the Quebec town of New Carlisle, where the former premier grew up.
Ottawa has pledged $750,000 for the project, which will feature a welcome pavilion and a series of sites marking different phases of Levesque’s life.
Quebec’s provincial government is contributing $400,000 and the utility Hydro-Quebec, which Levesque helped nationalize, is contributing $200,000.
In announcing the grant, federal Heritage Minister Melanie Jolie called Levesque, “one of Quebec’s greatest political figures,” saying the project will “give visitors from across Canada the chance to learn more about this influential man.”
Levesque, who once worked at Radio Canada International, first gained fame as a war correspondent and television personality and journalist.
He later became part of Liberal Premier Jean Lesage’s “Quiet Revolution” in the early 1960s, which played a major part in modernizing Quebec society.
He later founded the separatist Parti Quebecois and served as the 23rd premier of Quebec from 1976 to 1985.
He died in 1987 at the age of 65.
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