In the days following bernard Landry’s surprise resignation as Parti Québécois leader, friends, foes and pundits alike have looked back on his career and focused on his devotion to the PQ and the separatist cause.

For 40 years, Landry has encouraged, cajoled and goaded his fellow Quebecers into taking the leap of faith he boldly made while he was still a university student in the 1960s.

Since his resignation, instant biographers have looked back on those years and highlighted several of Landry’s achievements in public life.

He is credited with playing a key role in
promoting acceptance of the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement when the pact’s survival hung in the balance.

He is also remembered for being Quebec’s finance minister when the province finally wrestled its stubborn deficit into submission in 1998-99.

Politically, Landry played a key role in leading the PQ through its difficult years in Opposition after the departure of founder René Lévesque and the devastating loss to Robert Bourassa and the Liberal party in 1985.

Landry also worked hard to make the PQ more welcoming to ethnic communities and was an important force over the years for caution and moderation against the hardline separatist faction of the party.

Landry has always been known as a tough debater with a sharp tongue — too sharp at times. It got him into trouble on occasion, such as when he berated an immigrant hotel clerk on referendum night in 1995 or when he referred to the Canadian flag as a “red rag.”

But it was Landry’s intervention in the private sector that will probably leave the most bitter aftertaste. A lawyer and European-trained economist, he often talked about the “Quebec model” of the economy — a code word for the heavy use of business subsidies.

The Quebec model in action often produced disastrous results for the treasury. The provincial Société générale de financement, for example, lost $770 million from 2001 to 2003 by injecting money into private projects. During that period, the agency was run by Claude Blanchet, Landry’s friend who also happens to be the husband of Pauline Marois, a former PQ finance minister and now a leadership hopeful.

One of the deals in which the SGF lost money was the $765-million Papiers Gaspesia project, now mothballed as unprofitable. The project was plagued by cost overruns and branded a fiasco by a retired judge who examined it last year. The judge blamed Landry for rushing into an ill-conceived plan to refurbish the Gaspesia paper mill on the Gaspé peninsula in hopes of reaping political gains in the 2003 provincial election.

Another unfortunate chapter in Landry’s career was his attempt to derail a deal in 1999 to transfer the Montreal Exchange’s stock listings to Toronto on the theory that a stock exchange was essential for the development of Quebec’s economy.

He was unable to prevent the denouement of years of declining stock volumes at the ME in favour of Toronto. The stock listings went to Toronto and the ME became Canada’s exclusive exchange for derivatives, with no discernable impact on Quebec’s economy.

On referendum night in 1995, a disappointed Landry told Quebecers the Yes side’s narrow loss showed how close the separatist movement had come to achieving its goal.

But 10 years later, it remains to be seen whether separation can be achieved or whether that night in 1995 was the movement’s high-water mark. The answer will determine whether Landry’s career was a success or a failure. IE