Statement made on 11 February 2009 by Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette
Hon. Céline Hervieux-Payette:
Honourable senators, it is with a great deal of emotion that I rise today to pay tribute to an exceptional individual who was both a great servant of the state and a skilled builder of this country. With his many accomplishments and remarkable personality, Jean Pelletier leaves an undying memory for all those who knew him.
For 40 years, he served his fellow citizens at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. In speaking of his friend, companion and the man who was his chief of staff for 10 years, the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien said that Jean Pelletier was a hard working, devoted, faithful, skilled man, with unrivalled class. This great public servant was an inspiration to young people, an advisor to leaders and the conscience of an extraordinary team.
Faced with difficult decisions that he often had to make with the prime minister, Jean Pelletier said of himself, in an interview conducted a few months before his death, that the boss is always alone when he makes the final decision. Others remarked that his personal style was to rule with an iron fist. Yes, he ruled with an iron fist; but his smile was warm and welcoming.
In 1995, when he called to offer me a Senate seat, on the eve of the Quebec referendum, he really had to insist and use his iron fist to convince me. I was vice-president of a private company but I thought I was too young and I believed that the Senate had a very bad reputation and was only for old people.
Thirteen years after taking Mr. Pelletier's advice, I have changed my mind about the Senate. It is with pride that I speak about Jean Pelletier today.
He entered the working world as a journalist. Then he moved into politics — but not Liberal politics — when he became press secretary first to Maurice Duplessis and later to Paul Sauvé and Antonio Barrette. In the private sector, he chaired the Quebec Winter Carnival in 1973. This position had an impact on the events that determined his future. It was as mayor of Quebec City that he was first recognized with admiration in Quebec, in Canada and abroad.
He was chief magistrate of Quebec City for 12 years. To list all of his accomplishments would take too long. However, we cannot overlook the enormous success he achieved in having the Historic District of Old Québec declared a UNESCO world heritage site. I must also point out the courage and imagination he showed in forcing the Canadian government's hand in order to bring passenger trains back to Quebec City's downtown core.
I would like to take this opportunity to once again express our deepest sympathies to his family and his wife, and to thank them for sharing Jean with us for so many years in service to his community.