Lisée is the son of Andrée Goulet of Thetford Mines. Lisée holds a licentiate in laws from the Université de Montréal, a master in communication studies from the UQAM and a degree in journalism from the Centre de formation des journalistes in Paris. In the 1980s, he was a reporter in Paris and Washington for both Canadian and French media. During that decade, he began an expansive investigation into 30 years of American political, diplomatic, financial and media attention toward Quebec and its independence movement, resulting in the book In the Eye of the Eagle, published in 1990. It won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction. Two books followed: Le Tricheur and Le Naufrageur, both of which were highly critical of former Quebec PremierRobert Bourassa. According to Lisée, Bourassa's refusal to support sovereignty after making a turn toward Quebec nationalism after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord left many sovereignists feeling betrayed. Bourassa was outraged by the title of the first book and never spoke to Lisée again. In 1994, he became a "special advisor" to nationalist Premier Jacques Parizeau and an important strategist for the 1995 Quebec referendum campaign. After the sovereignty referendum failure and Parizeau's resulting resignation, Lisée then became advisor to Parizeau's successor, Lucien Bouchard. Lisée resigned from this post in late 1999 because of disagreements over the sovereignty strategy of the provincial PQ government. He explained his own strategy in 'Emergency Exit: How to Avert Quebec Decline. Lisée was guest scholar from 2001 to 2003 at the International Research and Study Centre in Paris and at the Political Science Department of the University of Montreal. He was the Executive Director of the International Studies Centre at the University of Montreal from 2004 to 2012. He is also a member of the Political Research and Social Development Centre and founder of international politics website PolitiquesSociales.net. He periodically writes articles published in the current affairs magazine L'actualité''.
Controversy
In 2016, while running for leadership of the PQ, Lisée stated that, if elected Premier of Quebec, he would ban Muslim veils in public spaces claiming that Muslim women could hide machine guns underneath their burkas. In September 26, 2016, Lisée stated that Quebec needed the "best immigration possible", and named Spain, France and Belgium as examples. Many thought, that because those were well developed countries, Lisée felt they could integrate into Quebec's society easier. Fellow PQ member Maka Kotto, an immigrant from Cameroon, criticized Lisée's comments. In 2018, Lisée said he wants a fence built near a Quebec-New York border crossing that is popular with asylum seekers.
