Many Quebec performing artists become politically involved after they become celebrities. With rock star Éric Lapointe, it was the other way round.
Lapointe took such an early interest in politics that he joined the Parti Québécois in 1988 at the age of 19 and became president of its youth committee in Terrebonne riding northeast of Montreal.
It was in the PQ youth wing that he met Yves-François Blanchet, who would become his manager and help launch a career that would soon see Lapointe open for the Rolling Stones in Paris.
(Blanchet, who later became president of the Quebec recording industry association, ADISQ, was elected PQ member of the National Assembly for Drummond riding last December.)
Lapointe, who was honoured last May by the Assembly for becoming one of the few Quebec recording artists to have sold more than 1 million albums in his career in this province alone, remains involved with the PQ.
Last October, he lent his powerful but fragile voice (his vocal chords now need a few days' rest between performances) to a show marking the 40th anniversary of the party's founding.
Then, with other performing artists, he signed an open letter endorsing the PQ in last December's general election.
So it might seem ironic that, while some sovereignists are campaigning against the construction of a new "English" teaching hospital in Montreal, Lapointe owes his health, and maybe even his life, to an existing one that the new one is to replace.
Lapointe lived up to his nickname as "le rocker national du Québec" by indulging heartily in the excesses associated with rock-and-roll stardom, including trouble with the law, brawling and, especially, heavy drinking. A photo on his MySpace page shows him lying on his back, eyes closed and holding what looks like a liquor bottle in his hand.
Three weeks ago, the 39-year-old Lapointe was taken to the emergency ward at the Royal Victoria Hospital suffering from what his press agent said later were the combined effects of fatigue, alcohol abuse and pneumonia.
He was admitted to the intensive-care unit, where he spent 12 days being treated for problems caused by alcohol abuse and under sedation while withdrawing from alcohol dependency.
Lapointe was released from hospital this week, and is to spend the next few weeks in an unidentified private clinic resting and trying to end his dependency on alcohol.
Another well-known sovereignist whose life might have been saved recently by an "English" hospital is none other than the leader of the PQ, Pauline Marois.
Last September, Marois felt stomach pain and was taken to the Lakeshore General Hospital, because it was the hospital closest to her home on Île-Bizard. She underwent an emergency appendectomy and remained in hospital for five days.
And while francophones occasionally complain of not being spoken to in their language in "English" hospitals, Marois volunteered after her release that she had been treated well, "and in French, I want to add." (As for Lapointe's experience, his press agent did not immediately return a phone message).
Such well-publicized cases as Lapointe's and Marois's show that, contrary to what opponents of the McGill University hospital project imply, it's simply not true that there are hospitals in Quebec reserved for the English-speaking community.
Francophones benefit from "English" hospitals. French is heard in their patients' rooms and public areas. Francophones, including sovereignists, are employed by them; sometimes a knowledge of French can be useful in communicating with staff in an "English" hospital.
And francophones receive treatment there. Some well-known sovereignists are living proof of that.
It's the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois, after the sovereignist organ of that name, not "du Québec," as I wrote on Tuesday. Sorry.
dmacpher vJa thegazette.canwest.com