For Canadians of a certain age, Rene Levesque is not an endearing figure. For about twenty years, from the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s, his greatest desire in life was to break up Canada.

He was the founder of the Parti Quebecois, whose raison d’être was to make Quebec a sovereign nation. On the night he won the election that made him premier of the province in November of 1976, a CBC reporter caught the moment perfectly. He said, “The Parti Quebecois is in power, and Canada is in trouble.”

Anglo Quebecers (I was one of them at the time), federalist Quebecers, and most people in the rest of Canada (TROC, as we called it), saw Levesque as a formidable opponent who just might be clever enough to take Quebec out of Confederation. But we all found comfort in one thing about Levesque. He believed in democracy.

At a time when some separatists were using bombs, kidnappings, and murders to try to stir revolution, Levesque was interested only in a peaceful, democratic parting of the ways between Quebec and TROC.

And he never wavered.

They could use a man like Rene Levesque in Great Britain these days.

That nation is on the brink of economic disaster because it could soon be leaving the European Union without a clue about what comes next. Economists don’t know. Politicians don’t know. And most importantly, the average citizen doesn’t know.

Oh, it looks as if Brexit is happening with the approval of the people. After all they voted to leave the EU in a referendum. It was a close vote, just 51.9 per cent said yes, but it did express the will of the majority.

The issue is whether voters had any idea what they were agreeing to. And the answer to that is obviously no. Leaving the European Union could be done in many ways. There could be a so-called hard Brexit; leaving cold turkey, accepting the unknown consequences with a stiff upper lip.

Or there could be a negotiated divorce, and obviously it was impossible at the time of the referendum to know what the negotiations would produce.

Now, everyone knows. And the negotiated agreement is an ugly duckling that almost no one loves. Even those who argue to accept it can muster no more enthusiasm for it than a hospital patient summons for dry toast and water.

Which brings us back to that great democrat, Rene Levesque.

In December of 1979, several months before the first Quebec referendum, Levesque unveiled the question that would appear on the ballot. It was a doozy. Just one sentence, but more than a hundred words long, with a couple of dashes and two semicolons thrown in. The gist of it was that he wanted a mandate to negotiate a Quebec exit from Canada. And if he got that mandate, there would be another referendum to approve or disapprove of the negotiated agreement.

Of course Levesque chose that path because he didn’t think he could win a straight up vote on “Independence Now.” As it turned out, he couldn’t even win a vote on “Independence Maybe.” But in retrospect, that model for making a monumental, historic decision seems as brilliant as a lightning bolt. One step at a time.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The British though, aren’t getting a second vote. Their referendum question was just 16 words long, and voters bit on Brexit, whatever that meant. They agreed to dip their toe in the water before they knew how deep it was, and now that they may drown, they’re being told it’s too late to swim to shore — too late for a second referendum.

Rene Levesque died more than 20 years ago. But a good idea never dies.

Mark Bulgutch is the former senior executive producer of CBC News. He teaches journalism at Ryerson University, and is the author of That’s Why I’m a Journalist.

Read more about: