 Portrait of Jean J. Charest. John James "Jean" Charest (born June 24, 1958) is a lawyer and the Premier of the Province of Quebec, Canada.
Profile
Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, he obtained a law degree from the University of Sherbrooke and was admitted to the Barreau du Quebec in 1981. He worked as a lawyer] until he was elected Progressive Conservative member of the Canadian Parliament for the riding (electoral district) of Sherbrooke in the 1984 election. In 1986, at age 28, he was appointed to the Cabinet of then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as Minister of State for Youth. He was the youngest cabinet minister in Canadian history. He was appointed Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport in 1988, and Minister of the Environment in 1991.
After Mulroney's retirement as PC Party leader and prime minister, Charest was a candidate for the leadership of the party at the 1993 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. He impressed many observers and party members, and placed a strong second to Defence Minister Kim Campbell, who had held a large lead going into the convention. Charest served as Deputy Prime Minsiter and Minister of Industry, Science and Technology in Campbell's short-lived cabinet.
In the 1993 election, the Conservative party was swept from power: only two of the party's 295 candidates were elected—Charest and Elsie Wayne. Charest was appointed interim party leader following Campbell's resignation.
In April 1995, he was confirmed as party leader and launched an effort to re-build the party. In the 1997 election, the Tories received 19% of the vote, but won only 20 seats out of 301, mostly in Atlantic Canada. The party was back from the brink, but Charest considered the result a disappointment.
In April 1998, Charest gave into considerable public and political pressure to leave federal politics and become leader of the Quebec Liberal Party. Charest was considered by many to be the best hope for the federalist QLP to defeat the sovereigntist Parti Québécois government. (The QLP is not affiliated with the federal Liberals.)
In the 1998 Quebec election, the Quebec Liberals received more votes than the PQ, but because the Liberal vote was concentrated in fewer ridings, the PQ won enough seats to form another majority government. The two parties won almost the same number of seats in the National Assembly of Quebec as they had won in the previous election in 1994, in which the Liberals had been led by Daniel Johnson, Jr.
In the April 2003 election, Charest was elected premier of Quebec with a majority government, ending nine years of rule by the PQ.
Declaring that he had a mandate to reform health care, cut taxes, reduce spending and reduce the size of government, Charest prepared an ambitious neoliberal agenda. However, as of early 2004, he has encountered substantial opposition from unions and other groups, and he and his party have suffered considerable loss of popularity in the polls (see Opposition to the Charest government).
Elections as party leader
Canada: He lost the 1997 election as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
Quebec: He lost the 1998 election and won the 2003 election as leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.
See also
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