Sylvain Simard
Sylvain Simard is a politician and academic based in the Canadian province of Quebec. He represented Richelieu in the National Assembly of Quebec from 1994 to 2012, and was a cabinet minister in the governments of Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry. Simard is a member of the Parti Québécois.
Early life and career
Simard was born in Chicoutimi, Quebec. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from the Université de Montréal, a Master of Arts degree from McGill University, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Bordeaux in France. From 1976 to 1994, he was a professor of French literature at the University of Ottawa. He completed a work entitled Mythe et reflet de la France: L'image du Canada en France in 1987, examining perceptions of Quebec in France from the time of Louis Napoleon to World War I.Simard's brother, Christian Simard, was a Bloc Québécois member of the House of Commons of Canada from 2004 to 2006.
PQ vice-president
Simard first became involved with the Parti Québécois as a regional organizer in the Outaouais. He was elected as the PQ's vice-president in 1981 and argued that the party's internal organization should receive more autonomy from the provincial PQ government of René Lévesque.In 1982, he helped organize a street protest against Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau's patriation of the Canadian Constitution without Quebec's approval. Later in the same year, he requested that Elections Canada incorporate a federal wing of the PQ so that the party could run candidates in the next Canadian federal election. Some senior party members opposed this measure, which led to the creation of the Parti nationaliste du Québec. Simard also helped coordinate the PQ's bid to join the Socialist International in 1983. This was opposed by the New Democratic Party, then the leading social democratic party in the rest of Canada outside Quebec.
Simard supported electoral reform and proposed that future elections in Quebec be conducted under a system of compensatory proportional representation. He also encouraged Premier Levesque to shuffle his cabinet and staff in early 1984, arguing that some people had been in the same positions for too long. His own term as vice-president ended in 1984.
Political activist
Simard was encouraged to run as a New Democratic Party candidate in the 1988 federal election, at a time when the NDP was seeking to build its support base in Quebec. He ultimately decided against running.In the same period, Simard became involved with local politics in the Outaouais region. He was a prominent local member of the Société nationale des Québécois and opposed proposed changes to the province's Charter of the French Language. He also formed a group called the Gatineau Democratic Movement in 1987, and there was some speculation that he would run for mayor in that year's municipal election. He ultimately decided against doing so, arguing that it would be irresponsible to split the vote against incumbent Gaétan Cousineau.
Cousineau was narrowly re-elected to the mayoralty, but resigned from office in early 1988. Simard was the first declared candidate in a by-election to succeed him, running on a platform of increased democratic consultation, budget cuts that would not affect municipal salaries, and reduced taxes. He also argued that Gatineau residents should be allowed to have a referendum on a proposed cultural centre, called for all mayoral candidates to declare their financial interests, and proposed a new municipal code of ethics. On election day, he lost to Bob Labine by only 174 votes.
Simard was a PQ candidate in the 1989 provincial election, narrowly losing to Liberal Party cabinet minister Guy Rivard in the Montreal division of Rosemont.
From 1990 to 1994, Simard was president of the Mouvement National des Quebecois. In 1991, he argued that a sovereign Quebec would try to reduce the concentration of immigrant communities in Montreal neighbourhoods. He was quoted as saying, "We can't lower the concentration ; the people who are here are here. But in the future... we will have to adjust our welcome of immigrants to our capacities to integrate them." He also argued that francophone Quebecers would need to become more accepting of immigrants and the changes they would bring to Quebec culture. At a MNQ meeting in May 1991, he said that most francophone Quebecers were "remarkably open to the necessity for and the advantages of immigration."
As MNQ president, Simard argued that francophone Quebecers were unfairly singled out by Canadian federalists for having condoned racist and xenophobic behaviour in earlier times. In the wake of a public controversy over Esther Delisle's The Traitor and the Jew, which addressed historical anti-Semitism and Quebec nationalism, Simard said, "Of course we denounce all forms of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, and we don't excuse it even fifty years later. But why should we have to respond to attacks that are obviously politically motivated?" Unlike other Quebec sovereigntist groups, the MNQ under Simard's leadership sought to build links with francophone groups across Canada.
Simard called for a referendum on sovereignty in early 1992 and campaigned against the Charlottetown Accord on Canadian constitutional reform later in the same year.
Legislator
Minister of International Relations
Simard was first elected to the National Assembly of Quebec for Richelieu in the 1994 provincial election, defeating Liberal incumbent Albert Khelfa. The PQ won a majority government in this election under Jacques Parizeau's leadership, and Simard entered the legislature as a government backbencher. When Lucien Bouchard succeeded Parizeau as premier of Quebec on 29 January 1996, he appointed Simard as minister of international relations and minister responsible for La Francophonie, with further responsibilities for the Outaouais region. On 22 January 1997, Simard was given additional responsibilities as minister responsible for international humanitarian action.Soon after his appointment, Simard warned the Canadian government to consider the possibility of a violent reaction if it ever tried to partition the predominantly federalist areas from a future, sovereign Quebec. This was in response to a statement by Canadian intergovernmental affairs minister Stéphane Dion, who said that if Canada was divisible, then Quebec would be as well.
In March 1996, Simard announced that Quebec would close thirteen of its nineteen foreign delegations as a cost-saving measure. He added that Quebec representatives in some of the affected areas could operate from within Canadian embassies, promoting both Quebec trade interests and sovereignty. Canadian deputy prime minister Sheila Copps responded that Quebec representatives would "absolutely not" be allowed to promote Quebec sovereignty in Canadian facilities, and Simard's plan was widely criticized in the rest of Canada.
Simard took part in a bid for Quebec to receive special status at the United Nations in 1997. This was defeated by the Canadian government. Later in the same year, he quarreled with federal politicians over the terms of a child-support agreement between Quebec and France; the Canadian government argued that some sections of the deal came close to defining Quebec as a sovereign country. Simard also threatened a boycott of the 2001 Francophone Games in Ottawa and Hull, on the grounds that the federal government was excluding Quebec from the organizing committee.
As minister of international relations, Simard represented Quebec in trade and diplomatic missions to France, China, Vietnam, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Zimbabwe. He was skeptical of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and encouraged Canada to withdraw from negotiations around the accord in October 1998.
In late November 1996, Simard criticized Charles Aznavour after the well-known troubadour sang some of his best-known songs in English during a concert in Ottawa. The minister was quoted as saying, "Charles Aznavour is a French singer and when he comes here he should sing in French. It shows a complete ignorance of the reality and sensibilities of Quebec society — it's a provocation."
Simard was re-elected in the 1998 Quebec election, but was dropped from cabinet on 15 December 1998. In 2000, he co-authored a procedural review document recommending that elected representatives be given more opportunities to consider and scrutinize proposed legislation.
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Simard rejoined Lucien Bouchard's cabinet on 6 October 2000, as the minister of citizenship and immigration. Soon after his appointment, he announced that Quebec would increase its annual immigration rate from 30,000 to a figure between 40,000 and 45,000 by 2003, while also raising its rate of francophone immigration from 44% to 52%. Echoing his statements from a decade earlier, he called for an increased settlement of immigrants into areas outside of Montreal to facilitate their integration to Quebec society. In March 2001, he announced that the numbers of both educated and francophone immigrants to Quebec were increasing and that the province would look to the Maghreb for more francophone immigration in upcoming years.In late 2000, Simard said that he would not serve alongside Yves Michaud, a candidate for the PQ nomination in an upcoming Montreal by-election. Michaud had characterized Jewish support for the Canadian federalist option in the 1995 Quebec referendum as an "ethnic vote against the sovereignty of the Quebec people" and described B'nai Brith Canada as "anti-sovereigntist extremists." He was also quoted as saying that Jews believed themselves to be "the only people in the world who have suffered." Simard described Michaud's comments as "an old anti-Semitic throwback that leave me no choice but to condemn." Michaud, in turn, contended that he was "falsely demonized" by the reporting of his comments and was not anti-Semitic. This controversy exposed divisions in the ranks of the PQ and is widely believed to have provoked Lucien Bouchard's resignation as premier shortly thereafter.