Jean Charest

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Jean Charest

John James Charest , PC (better known as Jean Charest ( ʒɑ̃ ʃɑʀe ); born June 24, 1958 in Sherbrooke ) is a Canadian politician and lawyer . He was Chairman of the Parti libéral du Québec from 1998 to 2012 and Prime Minister of the Province of Québec from April 29, 2003 to September 19, 2012 . He began his political career in 1984 as a member of the Canadian House of Commons . He served as the youngest minister in Canadian history from 1986 to 1990 and from 1991 to 1993 in the cabinets of Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell and was a member of various federal ministries. From 1993 to 1998 Charest was chairman of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada , but then he switched to provincial politics and the Liberals.

Federal Minister

His maternal ancestors come from Ireland , which is why he has an English baptismal name (John). However, Charest has always called himself Jean in public in order to better stand out among the French-speaking majority of Québec. He grew up in the city of Sherbrooke in the southeast of the province and received his education there. He then studied law at the Université de Sherbrooke , in 1980 made the degree in Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and received 1981 admission as a lawyer .

As a member of the Progressive Conservative Party , Charest ran for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons and was elected MP for the Sherbrooke constituency in the September 1984 elections. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney named him Minister for Youth in June 1986. This made the then 28-year-old Charest the youngest member of the government in Canadian history.

In March 1988 he was also assigned the areas of fitness and amateur sports, but had to resign in January 1990 because he had insulted a referee at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland . Despite this misconduct, Mulroney appointed him chairman of a special committee that was supposed to draft a resolution accompanying the Meech Lake Accord , a planned major constitutional amendment. In April 1991 Charest returned to the cabinet and became Minister of the Environment.

Chairman of the Progressive Conservatives

After Mulroney announced his resignation at the end of June 1993, Charest ran for chairmanship and was barely beaten by Kim Campbell . During her brief tenure, he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. In the October 1993 general election, the progressive conservatives suffered a devastating defeat. Charest was one of only two candidates who were elected.

As the only re-elected member of the previous cabinet, he was elected interim party chairman in December 1993 and was finally confirmed in April 1995. This made him the first Francophone chairman of the progressive-conservative party (and also the last since the party dissolved in 2003). In the 1997 elections, the progressive conservatives were able to gain again, but since the increase in votes was evenly distributed across the country, this - in contrast to the reform party , for example - was reflected in only a few wins.

During the voting campaign leading up to the Québec referendum in 1995 , Charest emerged as one of the most active opponents of the province's independence. Independence was finally rejected extremely narrowly with 49.4% yes votes. Charest's popularity among the provincial population increased significantly and in 1997 he was even ahead of Provincial Prime Minister Lucien Bouchard in opinion polls .

Chairman of the Québec Liberals

At the beginning of 1998, Daniel Johnson announced his early resignation as chairman of the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ). Business circles in particular tried to persuade Charest to switch to provincial politics, as he seemed best suited to replace the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ) in power (the PLQ has been completely independent of the Liberal Party of Canada since 1955 , which is why such a step was unproblematic). On April 3, 1998, Charest finally gave in to considerable public pressure, resigned as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, and was elected chairman of the PLQ a month later.

In the November 1998 elections to the Québec National Assembly , the Liberals won more votes than the PQ, but they were more evenly distributed among the constituencies, so they won fewer seats and the PQ could continue to form government. There were almost no changes since the 1994 elections. In the elections on April 14, 2003, the Liberals made little progress, but since the PQ lost share of the vote to the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), this resulted in a clear majority of seats for the Liberals. Vice-Governor Lise Thibault appointed Charest as the new Prime Minister of Québec on April 29, 2003.

Prime Minister of Quebec

The first two years of Charest's government were marked by hard clashes with unions protesting against the downsizing of the state administration. Nor did he lower taxes as promised during the election campaign, blaming the previous government's high deficit. In contrast, he was praised for his support for the Kyoto Protocol (in contrast to Stephen Harper's conservative federal government , Québec intends to meet the requirements).

In opinion polls, the government received consistently low approval ratings. After the election of André Boisclair as the new PQ chairman, it initially seemed as if the Liberals would have to accept a major defeat in the next elections. But Boisclair proved to be an ineffective opposition leader, and Charest's poll numbers improved again. Despite the low popularity among the population, his position as party leader was never seriously endangered.

In the elections on March 26, 2007, the PLQ lost almost 13% of the vote, but still remained the strongest force. However, this resulted in the first minority government of Québec since 1878. Charest only barely defended his own seat in Sherbrooke. Early forecasts predicted a defeat, and only after the postal votes had been counted late on election day was his re-election certain. Three weeks later, Charest reshuffled his cabinet: the number of ministers fell from 24 to 18. Men and women were now represented equally, which is a first in Québec's history.

In December 2007, the opposition asked Charest to testify before the House of Commons Ethics Committee. The German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber had claimed that he had supported Charest in 1993 with a campaign donation of 30,000 dollars before he was elected chairman of the Progressive Conservative Party. Charest replied that it was only $ 10,000; In addition, such personal election donations were expressly permitted under the law of the time.

In November 2008, Charest called early elections because, in his opinion, Québec needed a stable majority government in view of the global financial crisis . The Liberals secured the desired majority in the elections on December 8, 2008 and were able to gain mainly at the expense of the conservative Action démocratique du Québec . Charest is only the second Prime Minister of Québec after Maurice Duplessis to win three elections in a row.

As a result, Charest's ratings in opinion polls fell steadily as he had to take numerous unpopular measures due to the poor economic situation. After his government decided to significantly increase tuition fees in February 2012, there were widespread student protests that lasted for months. The enactment of an emergency law that restricted freedom of assembly and provoked new confrontations with students met with fierce criticism . Charest scheduled early elections for September 4, 2012. This ended with a victory for the Parti Québécois, which was able to form a minority government. Charest himself lost in his Sherbrooke constituency. He continued the official business until September 19 and then withdrew from politics.

Awards

On June 11, 2007 Jean Charest received the Bavarian Order of Merit from Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber (Québec is a partner region of Bavaria ). In February 2009, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Charest Commander of the Legion of Honor.

Web links

Commons : Jean Charest  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Liberal Premier Charest holds on to Sherbrooke seat ( March 15, 2013 memento on the Internet Archive ) - CBC News, March 27, 2007
  2. ^ No smoking gun in Schreiber cash for Charest ( Memento of December 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) - The Gazette, December 8, 2007
  3. ^ Tear gas used on Montreal marchers defying protest laws. CBC News, May 19, 2012, accessed September 26, 2012 .
  4. ^ Quebec Liberal Party leader Jean Charest resigns. Montreal Gazette, September 5, 2012, accessed September 26, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Prime Minister of Québec awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit ( Memento from December 16, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
personal data
SURNAME Charest, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Charest, John James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Sherbrooke