Duplessis, Maurice Le Noblet

Note: This secion was written by Mordecai Richler in the Montreal Gazette on Junee 13, 1999.

The reason for the following, is because I lived it, as a travelling salesman, and I always knew what Mr.Richler described.

The era was known as la grande noirceur or the graet darkness. It was said that the real rulers of Quebec (the English) who had manipulated a French-Canadian (Duplessis), allowing him to govern the province. He ran the province out of his pocket, for some 20 yrs, enriching his cronies. Some of his voters, voted as much as 20 times.

Diving through the countryside during the Duplessis regime, you could always tell who voted for the Union National Party ( now defunct) and which had sinned. The roads in the Union Nationale ridings were paved the others weren't. During the Union Nationale's last period of rule, liquor licenses were sold for Montreal night clubs sold for as much as $30,000, whereas later under the Liberal govennment that had displaced it, could be obtained for only $100.00. Kickbacks paid out by the companies dealing with the Union National, over a 16 yr. period, came to about $100 million, or more than a billion, in todays bucks.

There is a lot more that can be written about this regime, but it would, use up my entire hard drive. Now you can understand why I remember this period well. Todays government, The party Quebois, is a separatist government, that wants to separate from Canada. Our taxes are the highest in all of Canada, but still a good place to visit and live. Places like old Montreal , Old Quebec and the Historic Plains Of Abraham.