Jean Lesage

Jean Lesage (born June 10, 1912, Montreal, Que., Can.—died Dec. 12, 1980, near Quebec, Que.) was a Canadian public official who was premier of Quebec during the period of reform in the early 1960s.

Lesage received a law degree in 1934 from Laval University, Quebec, and in 1939–44 served as a crown attorney. In 1945 he was elected to the federal House of Commons—to serve as parliamentary assistant to leading members of the cabinet and also as a delegate to the United Nations. In 1953 he was appointed minister of resources and development in the federal government. In 1958 he was elected leader of the provincial Quebec Liberal Party, after which he resigned his national portfolio and Commons seat. In the provincial elections of 1960 he led the Liberal Party’s victory over the conservative Union Nationale, which had been in office since 1944.

With a platform calling for social and cultural reform as well as greater provincial autonomy, Lesage set out to lead Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution.” He formed a Cabinet of diverse and, to some extent, disputatious personalities who were dubbed l’équipe de tonnerre (“the team of thunder”). They included the first woman elected to the Quebec legislature; the left-wing nationalist René Lévesque, later to lead the separatist Parti Québecois; and the conservative champion of law and order Claude Wagner.

Lesage fought and decisively won the 1962 provincial election on the issue of the nationalization of hydroelectric power. Under Lesage’s administration, the provincial government became more active in the fields of social welfare, municipal reform, and culture. He appointed the first minister of education in Quebec; the school system and the civil service were modernized; and clerical influence was reduced.

Lesage served as his own finance minister and minister of federal-provincial affairs. In this capacity he won major fiscal concessions from the federal government. His administration was also active in developing closer ties with France through cultural and educational accords.

In 1966 the Liberals were defeated by the renovated Union Nationale. Lesage was thereafter leader of the opposition until 1970, when he was succeeded by his protégé Robert Bourassa.