Dentist was Quebec’s unapologetic partitionist
Dr. William (Bill) Shaw, a former West Island MNA, has died at age 85 in Port Perry, Ont.
Shaw was a dentist by profession, but become a controversial figure in Quebec political circles for advocating the partition of the province in the wake of the rising separatist threat that first rocked Quebec and Canada in the 1970s.
Shaw was elected to Quebec’s National Assembly as a member of the Union Nationale Party in Pointe-Claire in the momentous provincial election of 1976 that saw René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois party swept into power with the goal of separating Quebec from Canada via referendum.
Prior to the 1980 referendum, which evoked strong passions on both sides of the polarizing debate, Shaw, a staunch federalist, co-authored a book with Lionel Albert entitled Partition, The Price of Quebec’s Independence.
It floated the endgame notion that if Canada’s borders were somehow divisible, then, logically, so too must be Quebec’s, bolstering antsy federalists who saw partition as a sobering antidote to the rosy scenario of secession painted by Quebec separatists.
Although the partition argument was not universally embraced by federal politicians, Albert said it eventually proved to be an effective tool to rebuff the “knife to the throat” of Canada tactics employed by Quebec nationalists who threatened to break up the country. The partition option gained more political credibility in Ottawa during and after the 1995 referendum, narrowly won by the federalist “No” side.
“Bill entered provincial politics mainly to defend English language rights and to expose the myth of separation that was used to undermine those rights. It was on Bill’s initiative that he and I wrote Partition: the Price of Quebec’s Independence,” Albert said.
“He should be remembered as someone who had a clearer understanding of Quebec than most people.”
Shaw once described himself as an unapologetic partitionist, but Laurette Vachon, his wife of 28 years, noted her husband was a strong proponent of bilingualism who often spoke French at home.
“What he believed was that bilingualism is awesome, and he was very frustrated that the English letters (on commercial signs) had to be smaller than the French letters,” she said.
Vachon was Shaw ’s second wife. He had three children from his first marriage — Sharon, Debbie and William — and was stepfather to Vachon’s four children: Danny, Alain, Sonia and Anick.
He attended Guy Drummond School and Strathcona Academy in Outremont and later graduated as an oral surgeon from McGill University in 1958. He practised dentistry in Hudson and PointeClaire and also worked for many years at the Lakeshore General Hospital as the senior attending dental surgeon.
He served in the Canadian Army (1956-63) overseas. He also coached football and basketball at Collège Bourget in Rigaud.
He moved to Ontario shortly after retiring eight years ago.