Of all the famous faces known in their time to Canadians almost as well as family, probably none was as expressive as that of former Quebec premier René Lévesque.

And his mournful, rubbery visage was never so eloquent as it was on the evening of May 20, 1980, after Lévesque’s separatists were defeated in the Quebec referendum on sovereignty-association.

Voice croaking, eyes deep wells of sorrow, he told heartbroken supporters “à la prochaine fois.” Until next time.

It was impossible then to know when the next time would arrive. Or, once it did, how close Canada would come to shattering.

With the 150th anniversary of Confederation this year comes opportunity to remember the two occasions on which the Canada project was put in greatest peril.

Looking back, former prime minister Brian Mulroney said in his memoirs, he never feared Canada would lose the 1980 vote, “because Quebec simply wasn’t ready to separate.”

The Parti Québécois had not been in place long enough for the debate “to acquire its later hard edge,” he wrote.

Mulroney even called it. Going into the campaign he told a colleague the vote would split 60-40, “with Canada coming out the winner.” He was almost spot on.

By 1995, that sort of confidence would prove almost fatal.

“As we seemed to be heading for a decisive victory, my federal colleagues and I didn’t worry as much as we perhaps should have about campaign tactics,” Eddie Goldenberg, chief of staff to then prime minister Jean Chrétien, understated in his memoirs.

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By 1995, while the grievance and aspiration in Quebec remained, the players had changed.

Gone were Lévesque and prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Chrétien was in the Prime Minister’s Office, while Jacques Parizeau was PQ premier. Lucien Bouchard, meanwhile, had returned home from federal politics and was a charismatic force waiting to be tapped.

In fact, former prime minister Paul Martin and many others believe it was the decision mid-campaign to have Parizeau step back and let Bouchard take centre stage as separatism’s negotiator-in-chief that ignited the separatist side.

Still, Goldenberg was given no reason in the campaign’s initial weeks to second-guess his confidence.

Early polls showed the federalist side well ahead. Then the earth moved. On Oct. 18, a poll published in the Star showed the two sides in a virtual dead heat. Little more than a week before voting day, polls showed the separatists surging ahead.

On Oct. 21, Chrétien was in New York to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. There he met delegates who found it “a mystery and a tragedy” that an industrialized, progressive nation such as Canada should be on the verge of breaking up, he wrote.

At a reception, he meet then U.S. president Bill Clinton, who asked if it would be helpful for him to say something.

A few days later, Clinton told a televised press conference in Washington, in reply to a planted question, that “a strong and united Canada has been a wonderful partner for the United States and an incredibly important and constructive citizen throughout the entire world.”

As Chrétien recalled, French president Jacques Chirac was less helpful, telling CNN’s Larry King Live that “Well, yes, of course we would recognize the fact” if Quebec were to vote to separate.

Chrétien was to give a major speech in the Montreal suburb of Verdun on Oct. 24. He planned to suggest accommodation of Quebec in regards to recognition as a distinct society and provision of a constitutional veto.

He called Pierre Trudeau to alert him. “Is it true we’re losing, Jean?” Trudeau reportedly asked. Chrétien said it was.

“You’re in charge,” Chrétien recalled Trudeau saying. “Do what you think you have to do.”

Along with his promises, Chrétien closed his speech that night with a quote from former Quebec premier Jean Lesage.

“Le Canada c’est mon pays, le Québec c’est ma patrie.” (Canada is my country, Quebec is my homeland.”

When he returned to Ottawa from the Verdun speech, Chrétien’s caucus was shocked at the stress and anxiety that showed on him, the weight of knowing the country could be lost on his watch.

Just days before the vote, on Oct. 27, a Unity Rally in Montreal drew Canadians in their tens of thousands from all across the country attempting to persuade Quebecers of their place in Canada.

Bouchard was contemptuous, scoffing that only at the last minute did Canadians show up to say “I love you, I love you’. By that measure, if Quebec voted to separate, he taunted, “they’ll adore us.”

Then, in his first televised address to the nation, Chrétien laid out the stakes.

“The decision that will be made is serious and irreversible. With deep, deep consequences. What is at stake is the future of our country.”

Come referendum night, Paul Martin said he “could barely stand to watch the results come in on the television” set up in the finance department.

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At 24 Sussex Drive, Chrétien was in an upstairs sitting room watching the results with his wife, Aline, daughter and son-in-law.

Staffers came and went, he said. “Some couldn’t bear to watch the screen for more than a few moments before going off to pace the halls or find a quiet corner to be by themselves.”

When the votes by 4.5 million Quebecers were tallied, the No side had 50.6 per cent, the Yes side 49.4 — a margin of 54,288 votes, or only a little more than fills the Rogers Centre for a Toronto Blue Jays playoff game.

In Quebec, there was nothing like the grace note of Lévesque’s epitaph to separatism in his generation. Instead, a bitter Parizeau blamed “money and the ethnic vote” for his side’s loss. He resigned the next day.

Chrétien, meanwhile, had learned from the country’s near-death experience about the perils of complacency.

“The moment the referendum was over and won, I personally took charge to put the close call behind us, now and forever.”

By statute, given the almost impossible odds of winning constitutional change, he recognized Quebec as a distinct society and provided a regional veto on major constitutional change.

Through a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Clarity Act shepherded by Stéphane Dion, he set out clearer terms for any future such referendum.

Together he hoped that these measures mean his “now and forever” trumped “à la prochaine.”

RISE OF THE YVETTES

Well before women in the U.S. turned a gross Donald Trump profanity into the inspiration for knitted toques, and before “nevertheless, she persisted” became a feminist rallying cry, there were the Yvettes.

And what they showed was that there is nothing quite as powerful, in any contest of wits, as turning an intended insult into a rallying cry and proud label.

In 1980, as the first Quebec referendum was approaching, Parti Québécois cabinet minister and former TV host Lise Payette indulged in the risky business of poking a tiger in the ribs with a short stick.

That March, as minister for the status of women, Payette had used International Women’s Day to criticize gender stereotypes still prevalent in old Quebec school primers from the 1940s and ’50s, which included the docile schoolgirl Yvette.

The next day she repeated her belief that the Yvette character encouraged the submissiveness of women and their confinement to the housekeeper role.

Then Payette went a slur too far.

She said Liberal Leader Claude Ryan preferred that Quebec women remain Yvettes, and that, in fact, he had married one.

Now, Payette had in the past shown the ability to turn a phrase. She is credited with creating the Je Me Souviens motto on Quebec licence plates. But this quip was most unwise.

Led by Ryan’s wife Madeleine Guay, Quebec women held rallies to protest — some dressing in old-time Yvette-ish garb. The first Brunch des Yvettes drew almost 2,000 women to the Château Frontenac hotel in Quebec City. A rally at the Montreal Forum, then home to the beloved Canadiens of the NHL, was attended by 14,000 women.

One observer noted that Payette had got things doubly wrong for herself.

Older women were proud to be Yvettes. And younger women resented being dubbed such. So all were offended at the put-down.

History records that on referendum night, the No side — loudly championed by the mobilized Yvettes — won with almost 60 per cent of the vote.

Payette did not seek a second term.

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