Pauline Marois

Pauline Marois
Marois in 2013
30th Premier of Quebec
In office
September 19, 2012[1] – April 23, 2014
MonarchElizabeth II
Lieutenant GovernorPierre Duchesne
DeputyFrançois Gendron
Preceded byJean Charest
Succeeded byPhilippe Couillard
Leader of the Opposition of Quebec
In office
December 9, 2008 – September 19, 2012
Preceded byMario Dumont
Succeeded byJean-Marc Fournier
Leader of the Parti Québécois
In office
June 27, 2007 – June 7, 2014
President
Preceded byFrançois Gendron (interim)
Succeeded byStéphane Bédard (interim)
Deputy Premier of Quebec
In office
March 8, 2001 – April 29, 2003
PremierBernard Landry
Preceded byBernard Landry
Succeeded byMonique Gagnon-Tremblay
Minister of Finance[a]
In office
March 8, 2001 – April 29, 2003
PremierBernard Landry
Preceded byBernard Landry
Succeeded byYves Séguin
In office
November 3, 1995 – January 29, 1996
PremierJacques Parizeau
Preceded byJean Campeau
Succeeded byBernard Landry (Economy and Finance)
Minister of Health and Social Services
In office
December 15, 1998 – March 8, 2001
PremierLucien Bouchard
Preceded byJean Rochon
Succeeded byRémy Trudel
Minister of Education
In office
January 28, 1996 – December 15, 1998
PremierLucien Bouchard
Preceded byJean Garon
Succeeded byFrançois Legault
President of the Treasury Board
In office
September 26, 1994 – November 3, 1995
PremierJacques Parizeau
Vice PresidentJacques Léonard
Preceded byMonique Gagnon-Tremblay
Succeeded byJacques Léonard
Minister of Manpower and Income Security
In office
November 29, 1983 – December 12, 1985
PremierRené Lévesque
Pierre-Marc Johnson
Preceded byPierre Marois
Succeeded byPierre Paradis
Parliamentary constituencies
Member of the National Assembly
In office
September 24, 2007 – April 7, 2014
Preceded byRosaire Bertrand
Succeeded byCaroline Simard
ConstituencyCharlevoix–Côte-de-Beaupré
(Charlevoix; 2007–2012)
In office
September 25, 1989 – March 20, 2006
Preceded byClaude Filion
Succeeded byMarie Malavoy
ConstituencyTaillon
In office
April 13, 1981 – December 2, 1985
Preceded byRiding established
Succeeded byLawrence Cannon
ConstituencyLa Peltrie
Personal details
Born (1949-03-29) March 29, 1949 (age 75)
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Political partyParti Québécois
Residence(s)Old Montreal[2] and Charlevoix
Occupation
  • Politician
  • Civil Servant
  • Social worker

Pauline Marois (French: [pɔlɪn maʁwa]; born March 29, 1949) is a retired Canadian politician, who served as the 30th premier of Quebec from 2012 to 2014. Marois had been a member of the National Assembly in various ridings since 1981 as a member of the Parti Québécois (PQ), serving as party leader from 2007 to 2014. She is the first female premier of Quebec.

Born in a working-class family, Marois studied social work at Université Laval, married businessman Claude Blanchet and became an activist in grassroots organizations and in the Parti Québécois (a social democratic party advocating Quebec's independence).[3][4][5][6][7] After accepting political jobs in ministerial offices, she was first elected as a member of the National Assembly in 1981. At age 32, she was appointed to the cabinet for the first time as a junior minister in the René Lévesque government.

After being defeated as a PQ candidate in La Peltrie in the 1985 general election and in a by-election in 1988, she was elected as the member of the Quebec National Assembly for Taillon in the 1989 general election. With the return of the PQ to government in 1994, premiers Parizeau, Bouchard and Landry appointed Marois to senior positions in the Quebec cabinet. She was instrumental in crafting policies to end confessional school boards in the public education system, she restructured the tuition system in post-secondary education, implemented a subsidized daycare program, instituted pharmacare and parental-leave plans[8] and slashed the Quebec deficit under Premier Bouchard's "deficit zero" agenda. In 2001, Premier Landry appointed her Deputy Premier of Quebec, becoming the third woman after Lise Bacon and Monique Gagnon-Tremblay to assume the second-highest role in the provincial government.

Following two failed leadership runs in 1985 and 2005, Marois briefly left political life in 2006. A year later, she stood unopposed to become the seventh leader of the Parti Québécois on June 26, 2007. From 2008 to 2012, she served as leader of the Official Opposition. In spite of internal strife in 2011 and early 2012, where she survived several challenges to her leadership from prominent members of her caucus – earning her the nickname Dame de béton,[9] "Concrete Lady" – she led the Parti Québécois to victory with a minority government in the 2012 Quebec general election, thus becoming the first female premier in the province's history.[10]

As Premier, Marois closed down Quebec's only nuclear reactor, ended asbestos production in Quebec, and pacified the province's turbulent campuses. Her government's highest profile initiative was the proposal of a controversial Quebec Charter of Values which would have banned the province's 600,000 government employees from wearing religious symbols including turbans, Islamic veils and Jewish kippahs.[8] However, the crucifix (notably, the one hung by above the speaker's chair in the provincial legislature) would not have been banned under the Quebec Charter of Values.[11] Her party was defeated 19 months later in the 2014 Quebec general election, an election that she herself had called.[12] Marois was personally defeated in the riding of Charlevoix–Côte-de-Beaupré and announced thereafter her resignation as PQ leader.[13][14] Her electoral defeat marked the shortest stay of any Quebec provincial government since the Canadian Confederation and the lowest showing for the PQ since its first general election in 1970.[15][16]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference ceremony was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Pauline Marois, Husband Claude Blanchet Purchase Condo for $2.5 Million". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on August 6, 2014. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
  3. ^ Béland, Daniel; Lecours, André (2011). "Le nationalisme et la gauche au Québec" [Nationalism and the Left in Québec]. Globe : revue internationale d'études québécoises (in French). Vol. 14, no. 1. pp. 37–52. doi:10.7202/1005985ar.
  4. ^ Gingras, François-Pierre (July–December 1975). "L'idéologie indépendantiste au Québec: de la revendication nationale au projet social" [Separatist ideology in Quebec: National social project claim]. Cahiers internationaux de sociologie (in French). 59: 273–284. JSTOR 40689738.
  5. ^ Pinard, Maurice; Hamilton, Richard (December 1978). "The Parti Québécois Comes to Power: An Analysis of the 1976 Quebec Election". Canadian Journal of Political Science (in French). 11 (4): 767. doi:10.1017/S000842390004659X. JSTOR 3231031. S2CID 154414785. As in many other nationalist movements active in the world today, the PQ combines its radical nationalist and its modern-democratic orientations with social democratic ones. The latter have also become reflected in its support.
  6. ^ Coleman, William D. (1994). "Rethinking Social Democracy: The PQ's Projet de Société". Constitutional Forum. 6 (1–4): 1–5. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  7. ^ "Histoire" [History] (in French). Parti Québécois. 2013. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  8. ^ a b Dougherty, Kevin (April 7, 2014). "First female premier beaten in her own riding defeat". The Gazette. Montreal. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  9. ^ Laporte, Stéphane (January 21, 2012). "Pauline Marois, la dame de béton" [Pauline Marois, the lady of concrete]. La Presse (in French). Montreal. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
  10. ^ "Premier-designate Marois promising to push her agenda, with caution". Global TV BC. The Canadian Press. September 5, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2012.
  11. ^ "Controversial Quebec charter exemptions based on idea that some religious symbols have become purely secular | National Post". September 10, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  12. ^ "CTV projection: Liberals win majority in Quebec election". CTV News. April 7, 2014. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  13. ^ "Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois loses her own riding in Quebec election". The Gazette. Montreal. April 7, 2014. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference resign was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "Don Macpherson: This is a spectacular failure for Pauline Marois". Archived from the original on June 20, 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
  16. ^ Radwanski, Adam (April 8, 2014). "Parti Québécois' popular vote at lowest point since 1970". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved November 7, 2015.


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