An Open vs Closed System Struggle: The Fight for Continental Water Management in Quebec
While minister of Hydraulic Resources under the leadership of l’Union Nationale Premier Maurice Duplessis(1945-1959), Daniel Johnson championed large scale water and hydroelectric projects, making Quebec into the premier pioneer of hydroelectric engineering in the world.
Prior to Maurice Duplessis, Québec’s break with cultural backwardness that had plagued its population for so long, had been initiated most boldly with Premier Adélard Godbout (1939-1944) and his creation of Hydro Quebec via the nationalization of Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company. Godbout’s collaborator Louis Philippe Pigeon was inspired by Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority, and began bold programs that unleashed cheap electricity, advanced agricultural technologies and rural electrification, breaking the usurious private stranglehold of Montreal Light, Heat and Power which had been prohibiting development and squeezing the population dry with expensive and unreliable electricity for decades.
