Former New Brunswick premier Louis Joseph Robichaud has died after a battle with cancer. He was 79.

Some called him "P'tit Louis," but he was a giant in New Brunswick politics.

Louis Robichaud honoured by members of the New Brunswick Legislature for his service.
Louis Robichaud honoured by members of the New Brunswick Legislature for his service.

Robichaud swept into power at age 34, leading the Liberal Party to victory in 1960.

He was the first Acadian to be elected Premier and was determined to create equality between French and English in New Brunswick.

It was a fight that led to death threats against his family, a police guard at his home and riots at the legislature.

Louis Robichaud speaks out on minority language rights during a federal-provincial constitutional conference in Ottawa, Feb.11, 1969. (CP PHOTO/Chuck Mitchell)
Louis Robichaud speaks out on minority language rights during a federal-provincial constitutional conference in Ottawa, Feb.11, 1969. (CP PHOTO/Chuck Mitchell)

From reforming liquor laws to developing industry, Robichaud is recalled by some as a hero and trouble-maker who accomplished his political mission with gusto and courage.

"Had we not had Louis, had we not had the 1960s I don't know where we would be today. We would probably be anglicized, marginalized, hunting for a soul," says Université de Moncton economist and author Donald Savoie.

Robichaud was born on Oct. 21, 1925 in St. Antoine, New Brunswick.

His first career choice was the cloth and at 15 he went to Bathurst to study for the priesthood. He quickly decided he could help more people by becoming premier of New Brunswick.

His high-school chum Armand St. Onge recalls a class trip to Fredericton when Robichaud stepped into the legislature and declared his intentions on the Speaker's chair.

"Louis climbed the three steps of the throne and said 'One day I will be premier of this province.' So that was it, and he became premier as everyone would know."

Robichaud's revolution wouldn't begin for a few more years. He studied economics, political science and law, was elected MLA for Kent County and was sworn into the premier's job in 1960.

Robichaud reformed taxation, fought poverty

Robichaud focused his attention on the poor people of rural New Brunswick. His neighbours on New Brunswick's north shore lived in poverty and had little hope of pulling themselves out of their desperate financial situation. He believed cities should share their wealth across the entire province.

"My father was not a wealthy person but he liked to help neighbours whenever he could and I learned to share when I was young to share the wealth," he said.

His government revised liquor laws, created collective bargaining rights for the civil service, established of a department of youth, appointed of a provincial ombudsman, adopted a non-premium medicare system, and revitalized of the province's natural resources sector, particularly mines and forests.

Robichaud is most famous for a massive social reform program known as Equal Opportunity. The controversial program abolished the county council form of local government and centralized in the provincial responsibility for education, hospital services, welfare, and the administration of justice.

In the sixties, New Brunswick was run by a patchwork of county councils that taxed what they wanted at whatever rate they decided.

Cars were considered real property and counties taxed them heavily. Counties even taxed cows and horses and chickens.

Schools were good in wealthy communities but substandard in poor ones.

Robichaud set up a Royal Commission on taxation that led to the provincial government taking over all assessment and taxation – and paying for equal government services across the province.

County councillors, and the anglophone establishment, accused him of being a dictator.

Robichaud reflected on that as a Senator in 1984. "The last thing I wanted for myself was that amount of power. It was not for me that I wanted the power. It was for the people."

The program ensured that all New Brunswickers had equal access to services, which radically improved the lives of many people in the province.

Robichaud often said in speeches that modernizing New Brunswick's primitive rural schools was his proudest achievement."Children attending one room schools nearly 100 years old, stocking fires, drawing water from a well nearly a mile away. Children in eight grades trying to gain from one teacher the knowledge their economic survival in a world that rejects the untrained."

For many, the 130 new laws securing the rights of rural New Brunswick was too much change too quickly.

Language rights created new social tensions

Robichaud was accused by many anglophones of favouring Acadian New Brunswickers. One editorialist suggested Robichaud's Liberal government was "stealing from Paul to pay Pierre."

But longtime Liberal Party researcher and former Robichaud assistant Wendell Fulton says all the poor in New Brunswick benefited from the reforms.

"Equal opportunity was not a redistribution between anglophones and francophones, it was a re-adjustment between urban rural in New Brunswick," he said. "When you didn't have high schools to go to, [but] wanted to go to high school you hitch-hiked. This was the sort of thing that had to be corrected and was corrected in the Robichaud era."

Many Acadians regard the Robichaud era as the beginning of a golden age. He created the Université de Moncton and brought French schools to the same standard as English ones.

He passed the Official Languages Act, creating jobs for Acadians in the public service.

For the first time since the deportation, Acadians were able to imagine a future as equals.

Robichaud also ran contrary to the richest man in the province – industrialist K.C. Irving. In an interview with CBC Radio's Jo-Ann Roberts shortly after retiring from the senate in October 2000, Robichaud recalled a meeting with Irving about his Equal Opportunity program.

"Ten committee members were studying a facet of the program of Equal Opportunity and Mr. Irving stood up. He said no government in sane mind would advocate the passing of such legislation. I was so strongly in favour of that legislation and I was not insane. That's the first indication I got that Irving was deadly opposed to our program."

After a decade in power, Robichaud's government was defeated in the 1970 election by the Richard Hatfield-led Progressive Conservatives.

Thirty-three years later, in January, 2002, Robichaud was back in his old seat in the legislature, as Tory Premier Bernard Lord brought in an updated Official Languages Act that extended bilingual services to municipalities.

Lord, along with the entire legislature, honoured Robichaud as a visionary and one of New Brunswick's most important premiers and citizens.