Lise Payette OQ (née Ouimet; August 29, 1931 – September 5, 2018) was a Canadian politician, journalist, writer, and businesswoman.
She was a Parti Québécois (PQ) minister under the leadership of Premier René Lévesque and National Assembly of Quebec member for the riding of Dorion.
She held various jobs, including editor of the weekly Frontier Rouyn-Noranda, host of the show La Femme dans le monde (The Woman in the World) at CKRN and secretary and public relations officer for the United Steelworkers of America.
The phrase "Je me souviens" ("I remember") on Quebec vehicle license plates is attributed to Payette, replacing the old slogan of "La Belle Province".
During the campaign for the 1980 Quebec referendum Payette denounced women supporters of the "No" side as Yvettes (the name of a docile young girl in an old school textbook).
As Donald Brittain put it in his documentary series of René Lévesque and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, The Champions, "The old women were proud to be 'Yvettes'.
The first of those rallies happened on March 30 when a group of 1,700 women held the brunch des Yvettes at the Château Frontenac in Quebec City.
[4] Payette defended former PQ premier Pauline Marois's failed legislation known as the Charter of Quebec Values, which would prohibit public servants from wearing religious garb at work.
Payette in 2016 defended her friend, the deceased film director Claude Jutra, about allegations that he sexually abused children that were revealed after his death.
[4] In 2017, Payette tried to dissuade Quebec media personality Léa Clermont-Dion from proceeding with a complaint of sexual assault alleged against journalist Michel Venne.