Hivon is an indispensable foil for PQ Leader Lisée
Minutes before the most important debate of his career, Jean François Lisée looked down at a list of handwritten instructions. They read as follows: “Calm/Zen, Engaged/Invested, Worried for the well being of people, Kind but not flippant, Statesman, Never aggressive, Go!”
If the Parti Québécois leader wasn’t the clear winner of the Sept. 13 debate, he at least got a few licks in. And that, in no small part, is thanks to the cheat-sheet written by deputy PQ Leader Véronique Hivon.
As the march toward the Oct. 1 election nears its end, it’s hard to overstate how much of an impact Hivon has had on the campaign.
Lisée is smart, entertaining and has an encyclopedic knowledge of policy, but he struggles to connect with regular people.
On the other hand, Hivon is the perfect foil for Lisée. Ask her about an accomplishment in politics, and she’ll talk about the mother of a 21-year-old autistic man.
During her tenure as Minister of Social Services, Hivon spearheaded a program to fund activities for autistic adults.
One day, while shopping in Joliette, the mother of an autistic man approached her.
“She walked up to me and said ‘Madame Hivon, my son has two half days a week of activities and it changed my life,’ ” Hivon said. “I told myself, ‘It’s just two half days a week and it changed her life?’
“He felt validated, his parents had more time to themselves, their child was happier and healthier. That’s why we do what we do.”
After four weeks of campaigning, Hivon has given a dozen or so variations of the same speech. On some nights, it goes on for 20 minutes and on others she’s forced to cut it down to little more than a curt hello before introducing Lisée.
But she’s always careful to include at least one message: politics can be a force for good.
“I know it sounds cheesy, I’m aware of that,” Hivon said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette. “It must be something that comes with age because as I get older, I find myself becoming increasingly sensitive about how policy can affect people. It’s quite moving.”
It was in England, of all places, that Hivon started down the path toward provincial politics.
Hivon cast an absentee ballot in the 1995 referendum while studying at the London School of Economics. At the time, she was content to pursue her graduate studies while history played itself out back home.
But something in her began to change.
“In the days before the vote, I saw the ‘yes’ vote start to take off in the polls and I thought, ‘My God, there’s no way I’m going to be in London on the day we win our independence,’ ” Hivon said. “What would I tell my grandchildren?”
And so the future Parti Québécois MNA spent $600 she didn’t have to be with her family on the night that Quebec nearly became a sovereign nation.
“It was really hard, but at least I got to live that moment with my loved ones,” Hivon said. “There was a time where I thought maybe I’d live in Europe and work there.
“But when I got back on the plane and landed in London, I realized how close Quebec was to my heart.”
After graduating, Hivon was admitted to the Quebec bar in 1996, served as a staffer in Quebec’s justice ministry the following year and climbed her way through the PQ ranks before finally running for the party in 2007.
She lost her first election to Philippe Couillard in Montreal’s Jean-Talon riding. When she ran in her hometown of Joliette in 2008, Hivon was elected to the National Assembly.
That same year, the adoption papers for her infant daughter came through.
“I wish I could say that, in politics, my situation is common,” Hivon said. “But really, you can count the amount of MNAs who have babies while serving on one hand.
“Being a mom in politics, I could see how it hurt my girl when I’d be away. She gets it now but I hope that, when she looks back, she knows I did it for the right reasons.”
Hivon’s eyes welled as her thoughts drifted to nine-year-old Iris.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The campaign can be long at times.”
By the time she became a cabinet minister, in 2012, her job came with severe limitations; Hivon served only 18 months as part of Pauline Marois’s minority government.
And yet, it was in this narrow time frame with almost no margin for error that she managed to draft Canada’s first medical assistance in dying legislation.
The legislative process needed to be rigorous enough to survive a Supreme Court challenge, earn the support of opposition MNAs and fend off critics from across the political spectrum.
It succeeded on all counts and came into effect in 2015.
And while provisions of the law and its application remain controversial, Hivon says it is one of her proudest accomplishments.
“People stop me to talk about it all the time,” she said. “Someone will tell me about a relative, a spouse or someone they loved who was able to end their suffering. I’m touched every time that happens.
“We really are, on some level, trying to change the world. That sounds cheesy doesn’t it?”
It must be something that comes with age because as I get older, I find myself becoming increasingly sensitive about how policy can affect people.