Much has been said and written about the man they called "Monsieur,” and I have found some of the vitriol quite disgusting.

The personal attacks, as far as I am concerned, are best left for the gutter.

But on matters of public policy, record, and achievement, the life of Jacques Parizeau is open for scrutiny and indeed criticism.

The tributes that have poured in I am sure are heartfelt but many are from people who obviously cannot remember the past with acuity or chose not to.

The verbosity is quite mind-numbing.

Kept truth from Bouchard, Dumont

Yes, Parizeau had a brilliant mind and he did make his mark.

His fingerprints are all over what is now modern Quebec.

But in his single-minded determination to make Quebec a country, he flirted with disaster and brought us to the brink.

I covered the ‘yes’ campaign for its entirety in 1995, crisscrossing the province back and forth, and I remember October 30th 1995 at the Palais des Congres as if it was yesterday.

Never, not once during that campaign did he reveal what was up his sleeve.

He had been caught once, with his comment that Quebecers who voted yes were like lobsters thrown into boiling water with no chance of escape.

We would only learn later the extent of Parizeau's plan.

Not even his partners in the Independence project, Lucien Bouchard and Mario Dumont, realized what he was up to.

Quebec came 54,228 votes from a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

That was Parizeau's plan.

It was to be a revolutionary act of secession backed by Crown corporations such as Hydro Quebec, and your pension fund.

He had already assured swift diplomatic recognition from the French.

Cemented us vs. them dynamic

It would have been total chaos.

Money and capital would have taken the first stagecoach out of Dodge, leaving behind a climate of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty.

Nor did Parizeau understand the harm he caused with his referendum night comments about money and ethnics stealing the referendum; the feeling of us versus them in post-referendum Quebec.

The day after when he resigned he was still unapologetic.

“It is not healthy in a society such as ours that groups when they come from specific communities vote 95% in the same direction,” said Parizeau.

Nor did he understand the damage he did to the Independence movement.

I am not sure it ever recovered.

When the same ugly undercurrent resurfaced with the Charter of Values so many years later it was crushed by right -thinking Quebecers.

Parizeau failed in the one thing that mattered most to him but the myths surrounding him will continue to grow and become ingrained in popular folklore

Despite his appearance as a jolly London banker and his By Jove's and his perfect command of English, Parizeau was not an ally of English-speaking Quebecers, nor any minorities.

Although it must be pointed out I found him exceptionally polite and he always had time to respond to English media.

More than most politicians, he rarely beat around the bush and that was indeed refreshing.

But his belief that it was the votes of old stock pure-laine Quebecers that really mattered the most that was troubling as was his resolutely single-minded desire to leave Canada. One can admire Parizeau for the courage of his convictions.

But never for what he stood for.