Uh, no he's not.
But I'm told that, about an hour ago, CTV Newsnet's came on with news guns blazing to suggest that the founding leader of the Bloc Québécois and Quebec premier a acheté le ferme, as they say.
But Bouchard is still quietly practising law in Montreal.
BTW: Emails about this to CTV have gone unanswered. A CTV spokesperson just wrote to say that this was immediately corrected and an apology was made.
UPPITY DATE: Just for the record, I blew it myself when I wrote earlier that Mike Duffy had reported that Bouchard had died.
Here are the transcripts for how it all went down:
Kate Wheeler (anchor): We have some breaking news for you. Radio-Canada is reporting that former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard has passed away. Bouchard was 66 years old. Shortly he would be 67. Mike Duffy joins us now from Ottawa. This is the man Pierre Trudeau called the illusionist.
Mike Duffy (reporter): Yes, indeed. And he was someone who had a profound impact, Kate, on Canadian history. He broke with Brian Mulroney and formed the Bloc Quebecois. And I must say that this is pretty dramatic news because we are having denials from his law firm that he is dead. He is in his law office in Montreal today so I think we better reel this back in.
Wheeler: I am hearing this -- I am hearing a lot to and fro-ing. His office saying we have been premature in reporting death as Mark Twain would have said and I hope know why Radio Canada has been reporting that. But indeed, now we are glad to report he is still alive. An awful thing to do.
Duffy: I tell you, in the live-breaking news business. We had made -- we have heard this more than 30 minutes ago. And had made a number of phone calls to people close to Mr. Bouchard, couldn't get an answer at his law office of now the law office is answering the phone and they are saying what are you talking about? So his friends, political friends, who would have known had he been ill have been saying to us, this is total news to us. We haven't heard anything about this. And so that's why we have been treading very carefully on this story. Federal government of course tracks these kind of things very closely. It was a total surprise to the prime minister's office. They said, we haven't heard anything about this. And so now we are happy to report that Lucien Bouchard is alive and well and at his law office in downtown Montreal. He is one of those figures that looms large, not only over Quebec politics but over the whole history of Canada because he was a cabinet minister in the (garble) government at a time of the Meech Lake Accord and it was over that effort to bring Quebec into the Canadian family to have them sign to the Canadian constitution that when he actually looked at the final documents that had been in effect negotiated by Joe Clark who was then the intergovernmental affairs minister that Mr. Bouchard said this was an insult to Quebeckers and left the Mulroney government to form his own party, the bloc Quebecois. Of course, it was after that party did so amazingly well in the federal election that he went back to the province of Quebec and quickly became the premier there. So Lucien Bouchard, a giant in the Canadian political scene.
Wheeler: Alive and well.
Duffy: Still with us.
Ooooopsy.
LATER THE SAME DATE: Radio-Canada officials have told the Star's Chantal Hébert that
they never aired news of Bouchard's death. As part of a panel on the all-news specialty channel RDI, they did run excerpts from last night's documentary on the 1995 referendum -- which featured Bouchard's 1994 battle against flesh-eating disease.
If that's what had CTV saying that Radio-Canada ''reporting'' Bouchard's death, then it looks like some folks in the CTV newsroom need to brush up their bilingualism.
Oh and this just landed in the email box ...
CTV Newsnet has formally extended its sincerest apologies to Mr. Lucien Bouchard and his family. The apology followed an erroneous report today by CTV Newsnet that Mr. Bouchard had passed away. The report was quickly retracted. Furthermore, the CTV Newsnet report incorrectly attributed the source of the information to Radio-Canada.
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING DATE: Now Radio-Canada is so angry it's talking lawsuits.
Catherine Cano, news director of RDI, demanded the correction from Newsnet after the CTV network reported Bouchard had died, attributing the information to Radio-Canada.
"It's completely crazy and completely false," Cano said in an interview. "Where the hell did they get that information? I'm really pissed off. It's totally false and I hate the idea that people might think we made that (mistake)."
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