Statement made on 17 June 2010 by Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool
Hon. Rose-Marie Losier-Cool:
Honourable senators, it is with pride and a sense of historical duty as an Acadian that I pay tribute today to our former colleague and former provincial premier, Louis J. Robichaud.
June 27 will mark 50 years since Ti-Louis Robichaud, a young Liberal MLA from Kent, became the first Acadian elected as premier of New Brunswick. I remember that election night well, because I was 22, and let me tell you, we celebrated his victory as only young people can.
For 10 years, the Honourable Louis Robichaud made dramatic, progressive, irreversible changes that transformed my province and Acadian society. Those changes would affect our taxation system, our social services and our education system.
Louis Robichaud was always concerned with helping Acadian society in my province, a society that at the time was very poor and disadvantaged compared to the anglophone population of New Brunswick. Moreover, the wealthy anglophones in the province were the fiercest opponents of the reforms Ti-Louis wanted to introduce, but he was always able to bring them around in the end.
As premier, he broke new ground by giving the government a role to play in education, health and social services and decreeing that wealth should be shared and should belong to the people, not just to a handful of individuals or companies.
Among his greatest reforms was the unanimous passing of the Official Languages Act, which made my province the only officially bilingual one in the country. New Brunswick's two language communities may not yet enjoy full substantive equality even today, but all Acadians will tell you what a huge difference that law has made in the economic and social life of francophones in my province.
Another achievement was the creation of the French-language Université de Moncton network on June 19, 1963. Still today, this university and its satellite campuses in Edmundston and Shippigan are the pride of Acadian society. Acadians can pursue higher education there in many different fields and in their own language. This university has revolutionized young Acadians' economic prospects.
Ti-Louis Robichaud also launched his "Equal Opportunity" social equality program, his most lasting legacy, which aimed to create a balance between the rich, urban, southern part of my province and the poorer, rural, northern part. This program helped balance the budgets in the different regions of the province to ensure that services were comparable across New Brunswick.
In 1970, Richard Hatfield's Conservatives unfortunately defeated Louis Robichaud, but they preserved and continued to promote a number of his policies in their government. Now that is a tribute if ever there was one.
In 1995, when I became the first Acadian woman appointed to the Senate, I was very happy to have Ti-Louis Robichaud as a colleague and mentor once again. Of all the pearls of wisdom he gave me, I will never forget what he told me one day: Canadians do not really know what the Senate does, and have no idea that the Senate acts as a chamber of sober second thought.
That is still the case today, honourable senators, but Ti-Louis is no longer around to see how true his words were, since he unfortunately left us five years ago, never to return.