Roméo LeBlanc, on the set of
Radio-Canada, 1965.

Roméo LeBlanc, press secretary to
Prime Minister Pearson, enters the
House of Commons with the PM and
rookie Minister Jean Chrétien (foreground),
Ottawa, 1967.

In 1959, he began employment as a journalist at Radio-Canada in Ottawa.  His starting position with Radio-Canada was a public affairs correspondent.  A year later, he was promoted to covering the Parliamentary Press Gallery, with occasional work at the United Nations.  Between 1962 and 1965, assignments took him to London where he was responsible for dispatches covering the European Economic Union (EEC), Algeria and Cyprus.  In 1965, he was the founding President of the CBC Radio-Canada Foreign Correspondents Association.  That year, he was posted to Washington, where he was accredited to the Pentagon as well as the White House, and accompanied President Johnson on his visit to Vietnam.

In 1967, Mr. LeBlanc became Prime Minister Lester Pearson's Press Secretary.  Prime Minister Trudeau continued this appointment, which Roméo held until 1971, throughout the tumultuous months of the October Crisis and its aftermath.