Gérald Godin

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Gérald Godin (November 13, 1938 – October 12, 1994) was a Quebec poet and politician.

Born in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, he worked as a journalist at La Presse and other newspapers and magazines. He was among those arrested under the War Measures Act during the October Crisis in 1970. Comments Godin made later in life, however, suggested that he supported terrorism. In 1988 on the joint Public Broadcasting Service/National Film Board production Canada: True North Mr. Godin is filmed saying: “Only bombs, in fact, were the ideal communication process to convince the English that we were after something important.”

In the 1976 Quebec provincial election, he won a seat as a candidate for the Parti Québécois, defeating incumbent Premier of Quebec Robert Bourassa in his own riding of Mercier. He served in various cabinet posts in the governments of René Lévesque and Pierre-Marc Johnson. His life companion was the Québécois singer Pauline Julien.

As a poet, he won the Québec-Paris prize for his 1987 work Ils ne demandaient qu'à brûler.