Claude Ryan - Politics

Politics

Bourassa lost the 1976 election and his own MNA seat to the Parti Québécois under René Lévesque, in part due to the editorial position of Le Devoir under Ryan's stewardship. Subsequently, Ryan won the 1978 Quebec Liberal Party leadership election and served as Liberal leader from 1978 to 1982, where he opposed Premier Lévesque in two prominent campaigns (a referendum and an election).

Ryan led the victorious "No" side in the 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty which captured 60% of the vote. One particular turning point in the campaign was when Quebec PQ cabinet minister Lise Payette criticized Ryan's wife as an "Yvette", a stay-at-home character in a popular Quebec storybook, then further suggesting that all females who were against sovereignty were "Yvettes". As Ryan's wife was particularly active in social and charity circles, this attack outraged many women voters in that province, and many of them voted "No" in the referendum.

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Trudeau had been particularly critical in his memoirs of Ryan. Trudeau first criticized the performance of the Quebec Liberal party, was "drowning in a swamp of its own verbiage" during a televised National Assembly debate on sovereignty, in contrast to the Parti Québécois which had masterfully coordinated its speakers. Trudeau then stated that Ryan's initial campaign efforts of talking to small groups of people wasn't sufficient, which resulted in federal cabinet minister Jean Chrétien being sent in to help the federalist side. This helped to perpetuate the strained relationship between Ryan and Trudeau.

Ryan then ran an old-fashioned campaign in the 1981 provincial election, being generally TV-unfriendly as he refused to tailor sound bites for the evening news. The results of the vote saw Ryan's Liberals finish just 3% behind Lévesque's incumbent Parti Québécois in the popular vote but the latter won twice as many seats. Ryan was succeeded as MNA opposition leader and party chief by former premier, Robert Bourassa, who was making a political comeback.

After the Liberals regained power under Bourassa in the 1985 election, Ryan served as Minister of Education.

Many in English Canada might remember him for his work against the establishment of a completely independent Quebec, separate from Canada. Those who followed his career, as a publisher and later as a politician, have noted that he also opposed the existing federal status quo, which he considered as too centralized, despite statements to the contrary by the then-Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Elliott Trudeau.