A rare glimpse into the private life of Landry
Yet we also got a rare peek into the private life of Landry the man, a father and a grandfather when Landry’s daughter, Pascale, talked about life in the Landry household nestled in a heritage stone house he adored on the shores of the St. Lawrence in Verchères. Landry was far from what you would call a conventional dad for her, sister Julie and brother Philipp, she quipped. Who among her friends had a father with such a vast culture, who was fluent in Latin and Spanish, or drove around town in a Citroën DS singing Georges Brassens songs aloud while smoking Gitanes, she asked as the crowd chuckled. “You can imagine me, as a teenager, in a restaurant when my father loudly insisted on being served in French,” Pascale told the gathering. Politics was a large part of their lives, of course, Pascale said, recalling how her father dragged them to political rallies and kitchen debates in the raging campaign leading to the 1976 election of the Parti Québécois. “More than your homage, which he would have appreciated, is that he would have wanted you all, in your own way, to continue his fight for a more just, strong and more free Quebec.” The lead speaker, Premier François Legault, the former PQ minister who worked closely with Landry, said Landry was a “profoundly responsible” statesman and devoted servant of Quebec who put the greater good ahead of everything. Then he quoted a famous line from René Lévesque, the PQ founder. “Yes, Quebecers form something like a great people,” Legault said, adding: “Bernard Landry lived up to the expectations of this people that he loved so much.” Landry had planned his own funeral down to the smallest detail, his old friend Jean-Yves Duthel, who acted as master of ceremonies, told the crowd of about 2,000, and that included giving his political foes a chance to speak. Former premier Jean Charest, who defeated Landry in the 2003 general election, talked about the years he and Landry sat across from each other in the National Assembly, “the precise length of two swords which never touched each other.” He said he had never met a man whose convictions were so “anchored in every dimension of his life.” He said he and Landry had one final conversation about 12 days ago. “I was able to tell him that he should feel very proud of what he accomplished for Quebec,” Charest said. “Where I had seen an adversary before, I saw a man whose heart was filled with love for Quebec.” Lucien Bouchard was the second former premier to speak, defining Landry as “inspiration for the people,” a man who ranked with the greats like Lévesque and Jacques Parizeau. He compared Landry to Quebec nationalist politician and publisher Henri Bourassa who, in the very same Notre-Dame Basilica in 1910, delivered his famous speech defending the French language in the wake of comments about the need for anglicization by Westminster. “Bernard Landry knew that speech almost by heart,” Bouchard said. Cree leader Ted Moses, with whom Landry negotiated the 2001 history-making economic and cultural development agreement, La paix des braves, grew emotional when he addressed the congregation in a mix of English, Cree and French. “Bernard Landry was a friend of the Cree,” Moses said. “He was also my friend and even called me ‘my brother,’ ” Moses said. “Rest in peace. Adieu, Bernard.” The sovereignty issue came up in many of the tributes, with former PQ leader Pierre Karl Péladeau opening his remarks with the words: “Un pays.” “We will never forget our country,” Péladeau said in a pitch to keep the flame alive. “Just like we will never forget you.” At the same time, a large part of the service was devoted to Landry’s efforts to make the PQ and Quebec a more inclusive society. Maka Kotto, a former PQ MNA, reminded the crowd that Landry fought all his life for the acceptance of newcomers in the party and Quebec. Daniel Amar said Landry was a longtime friend of the Jewish community as well. “Bernard, you don’t know how many people you touched while on this Earth,” Kotto said. “Thank you, my brother.” The state funeral capped a week of events dedicated to Landry, who died last Tuesday. Overall, this state funeral was more lavish than the last, for Jacques Parizeau in 2015. Here, 14 people spoke. The mass was interrupted twice by a heckler who broke the respectful silence with nationalist rhetoric. Landry is to be buried in a private service in the Verchères cemetery alongside his first wife, Lorraine Laporte, who died in 1999.