indépendance, his party won the 1966 election and he became Premier of Quebec, a position that he retained until his death. His term was, among other things, qualified by tensions with the Canadian government over constitutional matters because as premier of Quebec, he put forward proposals to reform the Canadian Constitution based on the notion of two equal nations, as opposed to ten equal provinces. Death In July 1968, Johnson suffered a heart attack which kept him from work until mid-September. On September 25, Hydro-Québec, the government-owned utility organized a ceremony to mark the completion of the Manicouagan-5 Dam. Hundreds of dignitaries, politicians, utility executives, financiers, engineers, and journalists were ferried by plane from Montreal, Quebec City, and New York City to the worksite to attend a banquet and a plaque-unveiling ceremony. Among the guests were Johnson, his predecessor, Jean Lesage, and René Lévesque, the former Hydraulic Resources minister responsible for the consolidation of all investor-owned utilities into Hydro-Québec in 1962 to 1963. Photographs taken at the banquet show the three men were in excellent spirits, holding hands, and smiling, but relations between the Liberal leader and his former cabinet minister were strained by Lévesque's recent defection to the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association, a precursor of the Parti Québécois. In his memoirs, Hydro-Québec executive Robert A. Boyd recalls being woken up at 6 a.m. the next morning by his boss, Roland Giroux. "I've got bad news, Robert...," said Giroux, who added that he just found the premier lying dead in his bed. Johnson's demise from another heart attack sent shockwaves at the worksite and across the province, and the dedication ceremony was quickly cancelled. On September 26, 1969, a year to the day after Johnson's death, the new premier, Jean-Jacques Bertrand, accompanied by Johnson's widow and children, unveiled two plaques and officially dedicated the dam after his predecessor. Both plaques are now side by side at the top of the complex. Elections as party leader Daniel Johnson lost the 1962 election. He won the 1966 election and died in office in 1968. See also Politics of Quebec List of Quebec premiers List of Quebec general elections Timeline of Quebec history Nicknames of politicians and personalities in Quebec Footnotes 1915 births 1968 deaths Anglophone Quebec people French Quebecers Canadian people of Irish descent Quebec people of Irish descent Quebecers of French descent Canadian people of French descent Members of the King's Privy Council