 He had also served as president of the Canadian Association of Teaching Hospitals.However, in 1979, Levine had run unsuccessfully as a candidate for the separatist Parti Québécois in a Quebec provincial election and he had campaigned in favour of Quebec's sovereignty in the provincial referendum of 1980.At the time of his appointment to the $330,000 hospital administrator's job in Ottawa, Levine was working as the Parti Québécois government's representative in New York.