These walls can talk

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This article was published 02/09/2025 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Roger Turenne never set out to write a memoir.

But one quiet evening on a canoe trip with his granddaughter Léa changed everything.

“We’re lying back in the tent one evening and I was telling her stories about my life,” Turenne, 82, recalls during an interview.

“I said, ‘OK, you tell me a story now.’ She said, ‘No, I’m only 10 years old. You’re 70. You’ve got the stories. I want to hear them all.’”

That moment planted the seed for Bit Player on Big Stages: A Journey Through Diplomacy, Advocacy, and Cultural Survival (Sutherland House Experts, 472 pages, $34.95), a sweeping personal account of Turenne’s life — from diplomatic postings in Africa to the heart of Manitoba’s French-language crisis and, later, environmental activism.

Born and raised in the small francophone village of Saint-Pierre-Jolys, Turenne’s early life was shaped by community, tradition and a deep sense of civic duty.

“The priest was more influential than the mayor,” he writes, reflecting on the town’s tight-knit culture.

That upbringing instilled in him a lifelong instinct to speak up when something felt unfair.

“Eight-hundred people gathered inside the legislative building, crying out ‘Hang Andy Anstett,’ the government house leader. They tried to storm the premier’s office. Security guards had to hold them back.”– Roger Turenne recalling Manitoba’s French-language debate of 1983-84

His daughter, born the year he left the Foreign Service, also nudged him toward the project.

“For her, all of these stories were ancient history. Every so often, she’d say, ‘Dad, when are you going to write your book?’” he says.

Another push came when Turenne retired from the Manitoba government.

“My then-boss, the clerk of the executive council, said, ‘Are you going to write a book? You’re the only person who has seen the biggest crisis in Manitoba government history from both sides and from inside.’”

That crisis — the French-language debate of 1983-84 — forms the emotional core of the memoir, which was published in French with the title Dans la cour des grands: Le parcours audacieux d’un Franco-Manitobain by Les Editions du Blé in June.

Sparked by a Supreme Court ruling affirming French-language rights, the NDP government’s attempt to pass a constitutional amendment that would avoid the necessity of translating every piece of legislation passed since 1890 into French met fierce resistance.

The Opposition hijacked the legislature, ringing bells for weeks to halt proceedings.

“It turned into a bitter, long drawn-out fight. The government basically stopped functioning. The matter went to court for resolution. It was a grand fiasco,” says Turenne, who served as French-language services co-ordinator.

He vividly remembers the chaos: “Eight-hundred people gathered inside the legislative building, crying out ‘Hang Andy Anstett,’ the government house leader. They tried to storm the premier’s office. Security guards had to hold them back.”

The crisis left deep scars.

“It’s almost forgotten now. It’s been over 40 years. Half of Manitobans weren’t born then or were too young to remember. Other books have been written about it. But if you want the human dimension — the panic within government, the agonizing choices, the mistakes and strategy — this is it,” Turenne says.

By 1989, a different government introduced a non-legislated French-language services policy, unanimously agreed upon.

“I stared down the barrel of an AK-47 wielded by a drunken child soldier. That’s not in the job description.”– book excerpt on Turenne’s time in Central Africa negotiating treaties, confronting apartheid in South Africa and narrowly escaping violence in war zones.

“So when we talk about reconciliation and hope, that would have been impossible in 1984. The view from down there was really very bleak,” says Turenne.

But Bit Player on Big Stages is far more than a political chronicle. It’s a journey through diplomacy, danger and discovery. Turenne recounts negotiating treaties in Central Africa, confronting apartheid in South Africa and narrowly escaping violence in war zones.

“I stared down the barrel of an AK-47 wielded by a drunken child soldier. That’s not in the job description,” he writes.

Later, he turned his attention to environmental advocacy, founding the Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and leading campaigns to protect wilderness areas like Little Limestone Lake.

“Sometimes Goliath wins, but when citizens mobilize, change is possible,” he says.

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The memoir’s structure reflects Turenne’s storytelling instincts.

“A lot of the 52 chapters are self-contained. They resemble long-form magazine or newspaper pieces. You can read them as stand-alone stories. It’s a good read. It’s not heavy going,” he says.

One early reader described it as “the script for a Hollywood action movie — full of twists, surprises and betrayals.”

Turenne laughs at the comparison but acknowledges the appeal.

“In that sense, the reader is left wondering, ‘Now what’s going to happen?’”

Above all, Turenne hopes readers will connect with the personal lens through which he views history.

“It’s not really a history book. It’s a personal perspective on the events. Inside stories — small and big — from a viewpoint that an academic or journalist might not appreciate or see,” he says.

For those interested in Canadian public affairs, minority rights, or the messy realities of governance, Bit Player on Big Stages offers a rare and resonant perspective.

“It’s written from the personal perspective with which people can identify,” Turenne says. “Even for political junkies and experts in the field, there’s something here.”

arts@freepress.mb.ca