Born in Montreal, Quebec, Roux originally studied medicine at the Université de Montréal, but gave it up to pursue acting. After travelling and performing in New York City and Paris he returned to Montreal and helped create the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and became a frequent actor in and director of its productions for several years. He also turned to writing and wrote successful plays, radio dramas, and television shows.
A staunch federalist, Jean-Louis Roux was appointed to the Senate by his longtime friend Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 1994. During the 1995 Quebec referendum campaign, Roux was arguably the best-known personality in the area of art and culture to campaign for "No." His public statement that Quebec intellectuals should not remain passively on the sidelines, unlike intellectuals during the rise of Nazism in Germany, provoked an uproar.
The following year, Chrétien appointed him as the new lieutenant governor of Quebec, a move that was seen as provocative by many since it was customary to appoint for that ceremonial function uncontroversial figures who had not been politically active for a long time, ever. He resigned abruptly, only two months into his five-year mandate shortly after the publication of a cover story, L'Affaire Jean-Louis Roux, in the magazine L'Actualité on 1 November 1996. Adding to what former federal cabinet minister Gérard Pelletier had already disclosed to L'Actualité journalist Luc Chartrand regarding Roux, his longtime friend, having drawn a swastika on the sleeve of this lab coat during his World War II medical school days, Roux revealed during his pre-publication interview with Chartrand that he had taken part and even been once in the front line of anti-conscription protests in 1942 during which the windows of stores with Jewish-sounding names and the anglophone newspaper The Montreal Gazette had been smashed. Also, he held pro-Mussolini, pro-Franco and pro-Pétain sympathies during those years. [Note 1][5][6]
There were soon increasing calls coming from all quarters for him to resign as lieutenant governor,[7] which occurred on 5 November.[8] Chrétien angrily accused "the separatists" of having engineered the whole thing to discredit a man of honour, but Roux himself did not support that accusation, and it was generally agreed that Pelletier's swastika leak during the L’Actualité interview that was at the origin of the scandal.
Roux tearfully told a news conference the day after his resignation that "the carefree attitude of youth may be an explanation, but it can't in any way serve as an excuse and especially not as a justification; I committed a mistake by yielding to the anti-Semitic feelings that poisoned our minds at the time."[9]
Chair of the Canada Council
On May 31, 1997, Roux returned to public life when the federal government appointed him to be chair of the Canada Council.
A secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) proper holding in its dexter claw an open book Argent bound Gules, standing on a rock set with grass proper.
Escutcheon
Gules in chief the masks of comedy and tragedy, in base a neutral mask Argent.
Supporters
Two grey wolves howling.
Compartment
A grassy compartment set with snow-capped mountains and pine trees proper.
↑Wondering why Roux had come up with embarrassing details about his medical student past at the very beginning of the interview without being asked, Chartrand speculated that by making these revelations himself, he was hoping to nip in the bud any potential revelations by others with the aim of damaging his reputation. It was a course of action that Chartrand thought might have been decided during a private soirée given a few days earlier in honour of the new lieutenant-governor by old friends, including Gérard Pelletier and former Prime Minister Pierre-Elliot Trudeau. (Chartrand, p. 20)
