 Before Lucien Bouchard became the prominent Péquiste most distrusted by hard-line sovereignists, there was Claude Morin. Just as Bouchard was a newcomer to the Parti Québécois who instantly rose to prominence, so was Morin a quarter-century earlier. Just as Bouchard represented the opposite pole to the more audacious Jacques Parizeau on sovereignist strategy, so did Morin in his day. And just as the more impatient sovereignists regarded Bouchard as a brake holding back their movement, so did they regard Morin. Morin held considerable influence over the founding leader of the Parti Québécois, René Lévesque, first as a PQ strategist, then as a member of the first PQ government. He was an architect of the "gradualist" strategy for achieving sovereignty by means of a referendum, a strategy Parizeau accepted only grudgingly, as he would later bow to Bouchard's demand that the 1995 sovereignist referendum proposal include a promise to offer Canada a "partnership" with a sovereign Quebec. So there was some gloating as well as shock among sovereignists when it was revealed in 1992 that he had acted as a paid informant for the RCMP. Morin admitted accepting payments of $500 to $800 each (which he said he gave to the PQ or to charity) for meetings with RCMP agents at regular two-month intervals from 1974 until 1977, which was after he had become a cabinet minister. But he insisted that he had been acting as a double agent to try to find out what the RCMP knew about alleged foreign influence over the PQ. And he said he had informed Lévesque of the contacts as early as 1975 and that the PQ leader, who had died five years before the disclosure, did not take them seriously. Contradicts Morin The disclosure damaged Morin's credibility, and now, nine years later, it has taken another hit. A new book contradicts Morin's version of the story. The book is the third volume of a biography of Lévesque by Pierre Godin, covering the years 1976-1980, from the election of the first PQ government through to the first sovereignist referendum defeat. It says Lévesque did not learn of Morin's contacts with the RCMP until November 1981 (and only then when a Morin confidante gave a Lévesque aide the transcript of a conversation with Morin she had taped on a small recorder hidden under her arm). Lévesque immediately dismissed Morin from his government, though he tried to cover up the scandal and spare them both embarrassment by allowing Morin to make it look as though he resigned voluntarily. Lévesque even allowed Morin to stay on until the end of the year to increase his pension. Morin's resignation from the cabinet and active politics, which he blamed publicly on disillusionment after the PQ's 1980 referendum defeat and the ensuing adoption of a new Canadian constitution without Quebec's consent, was announced in January 1982. Wrote Confession But in return for allowing Morin to pretend to have resigned instead of being fired, and to protect himself in case the story became public knowledge, Lévesque had Morin write a confession under the supervision of Lévesque's staff. The confession, excerpts of which are published in an annex of the book, begins by saying Morin had informed Lévesque of his contacts with the RCMP "for the first time" less than a week before he wrote the confession, dated Dec. 3, 1981. It then gives his account of his dealings and essentially the same explanation of his actions he was to give many years later when they were finally revealed. While the book says Lévesque didn't know what Morin had done until 1981, two other members of his government had known since 1977, when Morin told them. One was Justice Minister Marc-André Bédard. The other was Louise Beaudoin, then Morin's chief of staff, now minister of state for international relations in the Landry government. Apparently, neither informed the premier. The book, titled René Lévesque - L'Espoir et le Chagrin, is published in French by Les Editions du Boréal and went on sale yesterday.
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