Strong Reactions Continue Despite Bronfman’s Retraction of Statement on Meaning of Separatist Victor

Charles Bronfman, president of the Seagram Co., one of the world’s largest distilleries, aroused strong reactions when he told a group of 400 businessmen on the eve of the Nov. 15 provincial elections that a victory for the separatist Parti Quebecois would “mean the end of the country and the destruction of the Jewish community.” He vowed that in such an event he would pull Seagram out of Quebec and with it the Montreal Expos baseball team in which he has a 40 percent interest.

The Parti Quebecois won the elections and Bronfman, a strong supporter of defeated Liberal Party Premier Robert Bourassa, issued a retraction. He explained that his remarks had been made impulsively in the heat of the campaign.

But the reverberations continued. At a general meeting of Seagram shareholders held three days after the elections, a spokesman for the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal which owns 50 shares presented a motion of censure against Bronfman. It was rejected after Seagram director Phillip Veinberg stressed the Bronfman family’s loyalty to Montreal and Quebec and pledged that Seagram would cooperate fully with the new government.

Earlier, Allan Bronfman, Charles Bronfman’s 82-year-old uncle, declared on French television that “none of us Bronfmans intend to leave Quebec. Whatever government we get we’ll move with it.”

EXPLANATION OF INITIAL STATEMENT

In his post-election statement, Charles Bronfman said: “It was incumbent upon those of us who dearly love Canada and who believe in Quebec as a viable and important force within the Confederation to bend every effort to ensure the strengthening of our country and our province. I felt then as I do now, most passionately, that Canada is one of the great and blessed nations of the world. And to face the specter of separatism which could tear our country apart was a prospect so shattering that what I said truly reflected my mood and my feelings of the moment,”

Nevertheless, Bronfman’s pre-election remarks drew a strong reaction from radio and television commentators and readers of the French language press. Several large circulation dailies published letters to the editor urging Quebecers to boycott Seagram products. The English-language Montreal Star reported that It had received calls from readers who said they were organizing a boycott campaign.

The Allied Jewish Community Services found it necessary to publish a denial of any connections whatsoever with a pre-election political meeting opposing the Parti Quebecois allegedly held on its premises. The disavowal appeared to the AJGS bulletin “Your Community News.”

In the same issue, AJCS president Joe Ain addressed an open letter to Premier-elect Rene Levesque pledging “full cooperation in achieving the common aims of all who wish to live in a progressive and enlightened society.” Ain wrote that the “AJCS will continue to work closely with the government in the fields of health, welfare and education and can be counted on to respond to human needs as we have always done in the past.”

LESSONS OF THE ELECTION

Meanwhile, Prof. Irwin Cotler, a McGill University expert on constitutional law, discussed with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency the implications of the elections for Quebec and its Jewish community. He said, “Just as the corruptibility of the Liberal Party brought about a PQ victory, so may a PQ victory ultimately result in a restored but authentic federalist party, liberal or other….If Quebecers, including Quebec Jews, have been taught anything by recent events it is that politics is not a linear course. But if Quebec Jews wish the ‘dialectic’ to emerge they must be more than enraged. They must be engaged.”

Cotler charged that “certain Jewish leaders purveying the Liberal Party line” were “as much victim as agent” and “had become imprisoned by fear. But the politics of fear was not only ill-considered and ill-advised, it betrayed a lack of faith in democracy.”