Bernard Landry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean-Bernard Landry
Bernard Landry
Jean-Bernard Landry

In office
March 8th, 2001 – June 6th, 2003
Preceded by Lucien Bouchard
Succeeded by Jean Charest

Born March 9 1937 ( 1937-03-09) (age 71)
Saint-Jacques, Quebec, Canada
Political party Parti Québécois
Spouse Lorraine Laporte (deceased)
Chantal Renaud
Profession lawyer

Jean-Bernard Landry (born March 9, 1937) is a Quebec lawyer, teacher, politician, who served as Premier of Quebec, Canada, (2001–2003), leader of the Opposition (2003–2005) and leader of the Parti Québécois (20012005).

Contents

[edit] Personal

Jean-Bernard Landry was born on March 9, 1937 in Saint-Jacques, Quebec, (near Joliette). On June 26, 2004, he married script writer and former yé-yé singer Chantal Renaud. He speaks three languages fluently: French, Spanish and English.

[edit] Professional profile

Bernard Landry received a degree in law from the Université de Montréal, and a degree in economics and finance from Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.

A practising lawyer, he was a partner in the Montreal law firm of "Lapointe Rosenstein" when he was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 1976 general election. Under the Parti Québécois (PQ) government of René Lévesque, he served as Minister of State of Economic Development from February 2, 1977 to March 12, 1981. Re-elected in the riding of Laval-des-rapides at the 1981 general election, he was again Minister of State of Economic Development until September 9, 1982 when he was made Delegate Minister to Exterior Commerce. He was later Minister of International Relations and Exterior Commerce, and Minister of Finance in the same government.

After the defeat of Parti Québécois in the 1985 general election, he taught in the Department of Administrative Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal until 1994. After the victory of the PQ in the 1994 general election, the newly elected premier, Jacques Parizeau, made him his Deputy Premier, a position he held from September 26, 1994 to December 15, 1998.

In February of 2001, during the Parti Québécois leadership race, Landry was criticized for a comment regarding the federal government's policy of prominently displaying the maple leaf on federal government buildings and programs, when his phrase des bouts de chiffons rouge was mistranslated in English Canadian media as "bits of red rag" — chiffon rouge is more accurately translated as "red flag", and is in fact a normal idiom in Quebec French which refers to the red cape that a matador uses to provoke his prey in the sport of bullfighting. [1]

He became Premier of Quebec on March 8, 2001, following the resignation of Lucien Bouchard. Landry is a Quebec sovereignist advocating a supranational confederation of Quebec and Canada, inspired by the institutions of the European Union. As such, he is one of the most faithful followers of René Lévesque and the other sovereigty-associationists. He is the author of Commerce sans frontières ("Trade without Borders"), published in 1987.

In 2003, he lost the Quebec general election to Jean Charest's Quebec Liberal Party. A renowned documentary named À Hauteur d'homme about Bernard Landry's viewpoint of the election was produced in 2003. At the August 2004 Parti Québécois National Council, after a long period of reflection that began the day after the election, he announced on August 27, 2004, that he would remain president of the party, and lead the PQ to the next election in order to bring Quebec to independence.

On June 4, 2005, Bernard Landry announced he would resign as party leader after gaining only 76.2% approval in a leadership confidence vote at a party convention in Quebec City.[1]

Since September 2005, he has been a professor at UQAM in the business strategy department. On Saturday, February 9, 2008, Bernard Landry hosted the final round of the Finance Quiz at the 2008 Financial Open at UQAM.

[edit] See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • Vastel, Michel. Landry, le grand dérangeant, Les éditions de l'Homme, 2001. ISBN 2-7619-1676-X
National Assembly of Quebec
Preceded by
Gilles Houde (Liberal)
MNA, District of Fabre
19761981
Succeeded by
Michel Leduc (Parti Québécois)
Preceded by
Jean-Noël Lavoie (Liberal)
MNA, District of Laval-des-Rapides
19811985
Succeeded by
Guy Bélanger (Liberal)
Preceded by
Luce Dupuis (Parti Québécois)
MNA, District of Verchères
19942005
Succeeded by
Stéphane Bergeron (Parti Québécois)
Government offices
Preceded by
Yves Duhaime
Minister of Finance (Québec)
1985
Succeeded by
Gérard D. Lévesque
Preceded by
Monique Gagnon-Tremblay
Deputy Premier of Quebec
1994-2001
Succeeded by
Pauline Marois
Preceded by
Pauline Marois
Minister of Finance (Québec)
1996-2001
Succeeded by
Pauline Marois
Preceded by
Lucien Bouchard
Premier of Quebec
2001-2003
Succeeded by
Jean Charest
Political offices
Preceded by
Jean Charest
Leader of the Opposition in Quebec
2003-2005
Succeeded by
Louise Harel
Party political offices
Preceded by
Lucien Bouchard
Leader of the Parti Québécois
2001-2005
Succeeded by
Louise Harel