Background
Born in Roberval, Quebec, the son of Georges Lévesque and Laura Richard, he was ordained into the priesthood in 1928.
Born in Roberval, Quebec, the son of Georges Lévesque and Laura Richard, he was ordained into the priesthood in 1928.
He studied philosophy and theology at the Dominican College in Ottawa (Canada) and social sciences at the School of Social sciences of the Université Catholique de Lille (France).
He was a professor at the faculty of Social sciences of Université de Montréal from 1935 until 1938 and a professor of social philosophy at Laval University from 1936 until 1962. In 1938, he founded the School of Social, Political and Economic Sciences of Laval University and was its first director from 1938 until 1943. The School became the Faculty of Social Sciences in 1943, and he was its first dean, from 1943 until 1955.
He founded the Quebec Superior Council of Cooperation and was its first president, from 1939 until 1944.
He founded the periodical Ensemble! and was its director, from 1939 until 1944. He was vice-president of the Canada Council for the Arts (1957–1962).
He represented Canada at several international events. In 1963, he founded the National University of Rwanda and he was its first President, from 1963 until 1971.
Lévesque supported the co-operative movement and, through his Faculty, helped create new social welfare bodies such as the Conseil supérieur de la coopération and the Société d"éducation des adultes, and to modernize Québec"s church-controlled social welfare organizations.
As well, his Faculty of Social Science trained a generation of union organizers. His liberal and social democratic ideas and work brought him into constant conflict with the government of Premier Maurice Duplessis and he is seen as one of the fathers of the Quiet Revolution that transformed Quebec society after Duplessis"s death. In 1955, Prime Minister Louis Saint Laurent approached Lévesque about naming him to the Canadian Senate as a non-partisan appointee.
Capitalisme et Catholicisme 1936, Le pluralisme democratique, condition de l'unite canadienne 1948, Culture et civilisation 1950, Humanisme et sciences sociales 1952, Le chevauchement des cultures 1955, Service social, Industrialisation et famille 1956, Youth and Culture To-day 1961, Le bilinguisme et les Universites 1961, Mon itineraire sociologique 1974, La Premiere Decennie de la Faculte des Sciences Sociales a Laval 1982, Memoirs Vol. I 1983, Souvenances II 1988, III 1989.
Royal Society of Canada]
He was member of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences in Canada (1949–1951).