Former Quebec Premier Who Blamed Jews For Referendum Loss Dies
Jacques Parizeau Image by Getty Images
Jacques Parizeau, the former separatist Quebec premier who blamed the Jewish and other ethnic communities for the narrow defeat in a bitter provincial referendum on seceding from Canada, has died.
Parizeau died Monday. He was 84.
Parizeau later acknowledged that in the razor-thin loss on Oct. 30, 1995, for which he blamed “money and the ethnic vote,” he was referring to the combined efforts of the Jewish, Italian and Greek communities on behalf of the “No side.”
“I knew very well who I was targeting when I said that: the common front of Italian, Greek and Jewish congresses,” Parizeau said in 2013.
He said that at 12 polling stations in Cote St. Luc, a heavily Jewish municipality in Montreal, “there were no Yes votes.”
The secession referendum lost by only 50,000 out of 4.8 million votes — less than 1 percent.
Parizeau stepped down the day after making the controversial comments.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
