The pathetic rise and fall of hunger-striking separatist Marcel Chaput

  The worst thing that can happen when you gamble if that you win.
   The old adage suggests that a smidgen of success offers sufficient psychological reinforcement to propel us down a misdirected lifetime of futile pursuit.
   So, for example, you turn 15, learn guitar and join band and get some positive attention. Next thing you know you're 55 and living with roommates in a basement trying to scrape together a living playing that Stratocaster.

   You should quit somewhere along the line and become an accountant.

  **

    Marcel Chaput was born in Hull and was hired as a well-paid government worker at the Defence Research Board in Ottawa after doing a Phd in biochemistry at McGill.
   One day around 1960 Chaput decided that French-speaking Quebecers were oppressed, to the point where he was compelled to do something drastic.
   He became embroiled in a conflict with his employer, the government of Canada which came to a head in 1961 when he asked for a leave of absence to start a campaign promoting Quebec separatism. 

   His 1961 book Pourquoi je suis separastiste reportedly sold 35,000 copies.
   Chaput was fired after he left work to attend a debate at the University Laval moderated by Brian Mulroney. 

   Chaput co-founded the R.I.N. but internal squabbles ensued. He wanted to support the church, others didn't. Some wanted the party to be a political party, others sought for it to be a lobby group.

   Chaput then launched the Quebec Republic Party in Dec. 1962 and once again attracted much attention in the summer of 1963, just when silly season started in the news cycle, he launched a hunger strike in order to raise funds for himself, or his party or separatism, or all.

   He would only end the strike once he raised $100,000, which is the equivalent of about $832,000 today, so that's a pretty ambitious Kickstarter campaign. 

   The roly-poly Chaput's hunger strike permitted him to eat only a slice of bread in the morning and drink water. 

   He conducted the initiative at his party offies at 4270 Papineau and never left during the hunger strike except to attend church. 

    $12 would get you a membership, $3 for women and youth and $100 would score you a charter membership to the Republican Party of Quebec. Cheques were to be written to Fonds Marcel Chaput. 

   Chaput refused to speak English, even though he was fluently conversant. 

   His quotes included: 

•  "Bilingualism is a sin against nature. 
• "The anglophones of Quebec have no rights in Quebec. They only have the privileges that the francophone majority would agree to bestow on them.” 
• "I'd be a coward if I wasn't ready to descend to violence for the independence of my homeland."

   Newspapers kept occasional tabs on the progress of his hunger endeavor.
   He ate a steak before starting on July 9 and within a few days had lost five pounds from his 245 lb frame and had gained $3747.65.

  One widely-published American article mocked Chaput for being a fat man on a hunger diet and having an "unfair advantage." "there was almost no place for him to go but down."

  Another explained that a doctor worried that Chaput might suffer permanent damage. So Chaput added a glass or orange juice to his diet to supply potassium.

   By 12 August 1963, on day 34 of his hunger strike, Chaput had apparently raised $91,248 of his goal of $100,000. 

    At a crowning meeting Lucienne Langelier of 4785 Ste. Catherine E. (considered a poor part of town) gave Chaput $9,000 and the hunger strike was over.

   A crowd of supporters accompanied Chaput to his home in St. Laurent and then, without him, went to the offices of La Presse where they burned an effigy of its editor Gerard Pelletier, who had dared to compare Chaput's hunger strike to "a form of blackmail."

   Chaput was a star and reporters even noted that he smoked La Quebeckoise cigarettes, which claimed to have a higher percentage of Quebec-grown tobacco.

   Then, suddenly and strangely, the wind that blew so strongly on Chaput's sails suddenly stopped.

Marcel Chaput, André D'Allemagne, Rodrigue Guité
and Pierre Bourgault

   FLQ separatist terrorist leader Mario Bachand's wife, noting the fortune Chaput had compiled to forward the separatist cause, asked Chaput for $10,000 in September for bail money for her husband. 

   Chaput declined but generously offered to extend amnesty to Bachand once he became leader of a separate Quebec. 

    In October Chaput forwarded a plan to raise $1 million per year for Quebec independence and then pay back all who contributed 25 times what they gave. 

   His party's Financial Chairman Henri-Yvon Lepage quit when he realized the insanity of the policy.

   Chaput's 5,000 members in 1963 were falling fast by the spring of 1964, possibly partially because the FLQ terrorist bombings drove members away

   By February 1965 Chaput was publicly lamenting his fortunes. 

   "Three years ago I had a house, car, security, savings and a future. Today I have nothing. Is that the fate reserved for French Canadians who have the courage to preach independence? I have given everything to the cause of French Canadians and regret nothing.“ 

   Rene Levesque's fast-rising Parti Quebecois sat down with the RIN but swiftly decided that there was no upside to being associated with hard-liners who favour violence. 

   So the RIN dissolved in 1968 and its prominent faces drifted into obscurity.

   By 1973 Raymond Barbeau, who launched Quebec's first separatist party in 1957, the Alliance Laurentienne, was a naturopath on Laurier Ave. Andre D'Allemagne was teching poli-sci at a CEGEP, onetime RIN president Guy Pouliot was practicing law in Quebec City, Pierre Bourgault was translating books that included Canadiana like Pierre Berton's The Last Spike. 

  Bourgault noted that Levesque's PQ had no room for the gang. “He wants to eliminate us because we have the image of violence.” 

   Chaput had trouble finding work and eventually got involved in selling fuel. 

   He was hired by a publisher to compile quotes for The Little Red Book: Quotations from Rene Levesque in 1977.

   It wasn't clear how Chaput managed to burn through the money that he raised from his hunger strike.

  Chaput gained all of his weight back and in his dotage was occasionally feted by fringe radical separatists groups that included such members as Gilles Rheaume.

  He coped with Parkinson's Disease before dying in relative obscurity in 1991.