Word: bourassa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...election was a catastrophic defeat for lanky, Harvard-educated Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa. In 1973 his party won 102 of the 110 seats in Quebec's legislature and 55% of the total vote by campaigning singlemindedly against the threat of l'indépendance represented by Lévesque and the Parti Québécois. This time Lévesque and his followers took 41% of the vote and 69 legislature seats, including Bourassa's own riding in Montreal. The Liberals, with 34% of the vote, were reduced to a humiliating 28 seats, partly because...
...Independence issue. After the 1973 election debacle, the Péquistes had soft-pedaled their platform calling for immediate separation, promising instead to honor the results of a popular referendum to be held within two years of taking office. In the campaign, Lévesque concentrated on attacking Bourassa's Liberals for economic mismanagement, ineptitude and untrustworthiness. Said Lévesque repeatedly through the campaign: "Our first aim will be to create the best provincial government possible...
...Olympic facilities originally were expected to cost Montrealers $310 million; the last anyone counted, the price tag was up to $1.5 billion. An investigation has already been threatened by Quebec's Premier Robert Bourassa to find out the causes of the bloated bill after the Games are over. Figuring out how to pay all those unexpected chits has been deferred until after the flags come down...
...vesque, 51, a brilliant journalist who left the Liberals because of their strong support of federalism. Although the péquistes enlisted an impressive array of French-Canadian intellectuals as assembly candidates, the momentum of the campaign gradually swung to the Liberals, whose slogan, Bourassa construit (Bourassa builds), was a not too veiled hint that Lévesque destroys...
Sigh of Relief. Separatism, warned Bourassa, would force Quebec to create a new currency, which would immediately lose value in relation to the Canadian dollar. This was the single most devastating attack against the Parti Québécois. The Liberals were also helped by their undeniably good economic record. In Bourassa's 3½ years as Premier, his government had created a vast social welfare program-including free medical and dental care-without raising taxes. New industries were blossoming, and unemployment had dropped from 10% to less than...