Naomi E.S. Griffiths - The Golden Age of Liberalism: A Portrait of Roméo Leblanc

Naomi E.S. Griffiths

The Golden Age of Liberalism: A Portrait of Roméo Leblanc

Toronto, James Lorimer & Company, 2011

Cased. Xiii + 360 pp. ISBN 9-781552-778968.

In 1995, Roméo Leblanc became the first Acadian – indeed, the first Maritimer – to be named Governor General of Canada. Born in 1928, the youngest surviving child of a poor farming family in the Memramcook valley, Leblanc received an academic education thanks to the support of two sisters working in the States. Two periods teaching in New Brunswick kept him in touch with his Acadian roots. As a young man, he was moved and angered by the Acadian deportation of 1755 but, over time, he drew inspiration from the community's dogged survival and its intricate, internalised networks. When he ran for the Liberal nomination in Westmorland-Kent, his rival was also called Roméo Leblanc. He had learned English because the provincial elementary school system was unilingual. To survive grammar school, he had to upgrade to mainstream French: he would reply to the offer to go to Rideau Hall by saying he already had 'un bon job' as Speaker of the Senate (273). Yet his career took him to the key places at challenging moments. Catholic social movements shaped his thinking and placed him in Montreal at the time of the Asbestos strike. His studies at the Sorbonne coincided with Dien Bien Phu and the Algerian War. He was a journalist in Diefenbaker's Ottawa and covered Washington as the United States sank into its Vietnam quagmire. In 1967 he became Lester Pearson's press secretary, transferring to his successor through the heady years of Trudeaumania. In 1972 Leblanc entered parliament, quickly becoming fisheries minister, and was one of Trudeau's farewell appointments to the Senate in 1984. The distinguished historian of the Acadians, and their interpreter to English Canada, Naomi Griffiths was a lifelong friend, one of three tribute speakers at Leblanc's funeral in 2009. This is an affectionate biography, in which the subject is 'Roméo'. There are occasional hints of criticism, but sensitive handling of the collapse of Leblanc's first marriage. As Governor General, Leblanc encountered no major constitutional issues, but his appointment, on the eve of the 1995 Quebec referendum, symbolised the importance of the French fact across the whole of Canada. 'I have never net an enemy of Roméo Leblanc,' writes Jean Chrétien in a brief foreword (xii). This biography is an appropriate tribute to a true Canadian.