Janette Bertrand: 100 years of Struggle for a More Open Quebec

An iconic figure on the Quebec cultural and media landscape, Janette Bertrand will celebrate her 100th birthday on March 25. Place des Arts is hosting a program of activities highlighting several of the key events and aspects of her life.

Host, actress, and writer Janette Bertrand has left her mark on Quebec by helping to “enlighten” it. In the 1960s, she notably became a confidante to teens in Comment, pourquoi? Two decades later, she continued to break taboos by encouraging dialogue on such topics as transgender identity and surrogacy in Parler pour parler. She also addressed controversial subjects such as homosexuality and domestic violence in Avec un grand A.

“She let people talk to each other, to bring some nuance to their vision of the world, to understand each other,” says playwright Rébecca Déraspe, who wrote Janette. The play, directed by Jean-Simon Traversy, will be presented at Théâtre Duceppe from April 9 to May 17.

In this new theatrical work, actress Guylaine Tremblay plays Janette Bertrand, engaging in dialogue with several generations of characters from throughout her life. The cast also includes one of this important feminist figure’s granddaughters: Zoé Lajeunesse-Guy. “I wanted to highlight how closely her journey is tied to the history of Quebec and that of women in Quebec,” says Rébecca Déraspe. “We go through Janette’s story, as well as our own.”

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In addition to her work on the media landscape, Janette Bertrand also contributed to changing Quebec mentalities by living her life as she saw fit, continues Rébecca Déraspe. “She has broken a lot of taboos with the many ways in which she has lived her life,” she recalls. “And a lot of homosexual people managed to come out thanks to Avec un grand A. If Janette said it was okay, then it was okay.”

She also helped democratize cooking in 1968 with the publication of the book Les recettes de Janette, designed to help households reconcile their family obligations and professional obligations. She then divorced her husband, Jean

Lajeunesse, in the early 1980s. For over 40 years now, she has been in a relationship with Donald Janson, a man 20 years her junior.

Through Janette, Rébecca Déraspe hopes to have the audience retain the important legacy and strength Janette gave to the people of Quebec in getting them to mobilize on current issues. “She has passed on her ‘guts’ to us, so we can continue to face the battles that await us,” she emphasizes.

An All-Important Legacy

Why do we still need a Janette? This is the question that Rose-Aimée Automne T. Morin will be asking in an Entretien arts et société discussion dedicated to Janette Bertrand—an event that will address current issues, with Rébecca Déraspe, Vanessa Destiné, Francis Dupuis-Déri, and Isabelle Picard—on March 27 at 5:30 pm in the Salon urbain at Place des Arts.

“Janette had an impact on the real world, on real families. And we still need that today,” says the writer, who believes that the themes Janette Bertrand raised remain relevant, even in 2025, when the rights of women, cultural, sexual, and gender minorities are being diminished almost everywhere on the planet.