Bernard Landry

Bernard Landry GOQ LLB BAEcon
28th Premier of Quebec
In office March 8, 2001 – April 29, 2003
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Lieutenant Governor	Lise Thibault
Preceded by	Lucien Bouchard
Succeeded by	Jean Charest
Leader of the Opposition
In office June 6, 2003 – June 6, 2005
Preceded by	Jean Charest
Succeeded by	Louise Harel
Leader of the Parti Québécois
In office March 2, 2001 – June 6, 2005
Preceded by	Lucien Bouchard
Succeeded by	Louise Harel (interim)
MNA for Verchères
In office September 12, 1994 – June 4, 2005
Preceded by	Luce Dupuis
Succeeded by	Stéphane Bergeron
MNA for Laval-des-Rapides
In office April 13, 1981 – December 2, 1985
Preceded by	District created
Succeeded by	Guy Bélanger
MNA for Fabre
In office November 15, 1976 – April 13, 1981
Preceded by	Gilles Houde
Succeeded by	Michel Leduc
Personal details
Born	(1937-03-09) March 9, 1937 Saint-Jacques, Quebec, Canada
Political party	Parti Québécois
Spouse(s)	Lorraine Laporte (deceased) Chantal Renaud
Alma mater	Université de Montréal, Paris Institute of Political Studies
Profession	Lawyer, Professor

Bernard Landry, GOQ (French: [bɛʁnaʁ lɑ̃dʁi]; born March 9, 1937) is a Quebec lawyer, teacher, politician, who as the leader of the Parti Québécois (2001–2005) served as the 28th Premier of Quebec (2001–2003), and leader of the Opposition (2003–2005).

Personal life

Landry was born on March 9, 1937, in Saint-Jacques, Quebec, (near Joliette), the son of Thérèse Granger and Bernard Landry.^[1] On June 26, 2004, he married script writer and former yé-yé singer Chantal Renaud. A native speaker of French, he also speaks fluent English and Spanish.

Landry received a degree in law from the Université de Montréal, and a degree in economics and finance from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris.Since September 2005, he has been a professor at UQAM in the business strategy department.

On February 9, 2008, Landry hosted the final round of the Finance Quiz at the 2008 Financial Open at UQAM.

Politics

He ran unsuccessfully in Joliette in the 1970 election and in Joliette-Montcalm in 1973. 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 in Fabre. 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.

In the Canadian federal election, 1988, Laundry backed the 1988 Free Trade Agreement. His support as well as Parizeau played a role in Brian Mulroney dominance over Quebec during election.^[2] He is the author of Commerce sans frontières ("Trade without Borders"), published in 1987.

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. It was reported in the New York Times that Landry spoke disparagingly of immigrants on the night of the 1995 referendum. The Gazette, an English-language paper in Montreal, reported that two employees at the Inter-Continental hotel in the city plan to file a complaint against Mr. Landry with the Quebec Human Rights Commission. Anita Martinez, a night clerk at the hotel, said that Mr. Landry told her, "It was because of you immigrants that the 'no' won," and added, "Why is it that we open the doors to this country so you can vote 'no' " to Quebec sovereignty? ^[3]

Landry became Premier of Quebec on March 8, 2001, following the resignation of Lucien Bouchard.^[4] He is a Quebec sovereigntist 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 sovereignty-associationists. He is the author of Commerce sans frontières ("Trade without Borders"), published in 1987.

In 2001, Laundry was critical about Quebec receiving an extra $1.5 billion in equalization payments calling it degrading Quebec status and accused Ottawa for short-changing the province for decades by stating"Receiving equalization payments for more than 40 years in a row is clear evidence that the central government failed in redistributing real wealth,".^[5]

During the Parti Québécois leadership race of 2001, Landry criticized the federal government's policy of prominently displaying the maple leaf on federal government buildings and programs by saying, ""Le Québec ne ferait pas le trottoir pour un bout de chiffon rouge." ("Quebec does not prostitute itself for a piece of red cloth"). Landry's aggressive remarks were widely criticized for insulting the Canadian flag, particularly among English-language media which rendered chiffon as "rag".^[6] Landry subsequently apologized but insisted that his words had been mistranslated. Landry's opponents used the controversy to undermine his national political cachet.^[7]

In 2003, Landry lost the Quebec general election to Jean Charest's Quebec Liberal Party.^[8] A renowned documentary named À Hauteur d'homme about his 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. However, on June 4, 2005, 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.^[9][10]

Works

• Quebec's Foreign Trade, 1982
• Preface of Price Waterhouse's Les 58 moyens d'exporter, 1985
• Commerce sans frontières : le sens du libre-échange, 1987
• Preface of Zeina El Tibi's La Francophonie et le dialogue des cultures, 2001
• La cause du Québec, 2002
• Le commerce international : une approche nord-américaine, 2008 (in collab. with Antoine Panet-Raymond and Denis Robichaud)

Articles

• "La mondialisation rend la souveraineté plus nécessaire et urgente que jamais", in L'Action nationale, March 1999 (en, fr)
• "Pour l'indépendance politique et pétrolière", in Le Devoir, June 13, 2008 (en, fr)

Honours

• 1999 - Bavarian Order of Merit
• - Legion d'honneur
• 2006 - Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society's Patriot of the Year and Bene merenti de patria medal
• 2008 - Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec

See also

• Parti Québécois leadership election, 1985
• Politics of Quebec
• List of Quebec leaders of the Opposition
• Quebec general elections
• Timeline of Quebec history
• Ted Moses (Former Grand Chief of the Cree)

Notes

References

• Vastel, Michel (2001). Landry. le grand dérangeant : biographie, Montréal: Éditions de l'Homme, 444 p.  ISBN 2-7619-1676-X
• Labrecque, Jean-Claude (2003). À hauteur d'homme, Westmount : Christal Films; Montréal : Productions Virage, 2003, DVD (104 min.)
• "Bernard Landry", in Vigile.net

External links

• Quotations related to Bernard Landry at Wikiquote
• Media related to Bernard Landry at Wikimedia Commons
• "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
• Bernard Landry on IMDb