Robert Perreault

Robert Perreault (born 13 May 1947) is a Canadian politician and administrator in the province of Quebec.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Université de Montréal in 1968 and later studied economics at the same institution.

From 1975 to 1983, he was an administrator for cultural, sports, and recreation organizations in Quebec.

Perreault was a member of the progressive Montreal Citizens' Movement (MCM) in municipal politics.

In the 1980s, he dissented against the party's call to reform Quebec's Charter of the French Language.

He was a prominent city councillor in Montreal from 1982 to 1994, a Parti Québécois member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1994 to 2000, and a cabinet minister in the government of Lucien Bouchard.

Perreault was born in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Quebec.

He was first elected to the Montreal city council in the 1982 municipal election, defeating incumbent councillor Roger Larivée from mayor Jean Drapeau's Civic Party in the east-end Laurier ward.

The Civic Party won a majority government on council in this election, and Perreault served in opposition for the next four years, achieving prominence as the MCM's critic on economic issues.

In 1985, he joined with party leader Jean Doré to propose an industry surtax to fund Montreal's public transit.

He later suggested that an "enterprise zone" be created for economically depressed areas in Montreal's east end.

Jean Doré was elected as mayor of Montreal in the 1986 municipal election and the MCM won a landslide victory on council.

Perreault was easily re-elected in Laurier and, following the election, was named as vice-chair of the Montreal executive committee (i.e., the municipal cabinet) with responsibility for economic development and administrative reform.

Perreault also served as a city representative on the regional Montreal Urban Community and was appointed as chair of the Montreal Urban Community Transit Corp. (MUCTC) in November 1986.

Soon after his appointment, he announced a one-year fare freeze and a small tax increase for suburban Montreal homeowners that was targeted to transportation.

Perreault introduced significant reforms to Montreal's civil service in early 1987 in a bid to decentralize the city's operations.

Almost half of the city's department directorships were eliminated (with many directors taking early retirement), and twelve new municipal centers were opened in different neighbourhoods across the city.

In the same year, Perreault introduced a ninety million dollar five-year investment plan for Montreal's east end; he indicated the plan would protect eleven thousand existing jobs, create four thousand more, and bring $350 million in investment from the private sector.

In 1988, he wrote a public letter calling for municipalities in Laval and the South Shore to contribute more to Montreal's transit system, arguing that the service was used by many of residents of these communities.

In 1990, he introduced a similar plan valued at one hundred million dollars for economically depressed areas in southwest Montreal.

The MCM won another landslide victory in the 1990 municipal election.

Perreault was not re-appointed to the city's executive committee, but remained chair of the MUCTC.

He announced his support for the newly formed Bloc Québécois in 1990 and called for a referendum on Quebec sovereignty the following year.

In December 1990, Perreault announced that the MUCTC would remove the government of Canada's English/French bilingual advertisements from bus and subway lines to ensure compliance with Quebec's French-only sign laws.

Critics noted that this would result in about $800,000 in lost revenue over the next year.

Perreault dropped the plan after being advised that the advertisements were legal under Canada's Official Languages Act.

The Quebec government introduced significant cuts to Montreal municipal transit in 1991, amid a serious North American economic downturn.

The MUCTC made up for these cuts by increasing municipal contributions, increasing fares, and laying off some employees.

At the end of the year, it posted a surprising $13.3 million surplus, and some transit advocates complained that the fare increases approved by Perreault had been excessive.

Perreault wrote an editorial for the newspaper La Presse in August 1992, accusing the MCM of having lost credibility with the electorate.

This was regarded as a serious indicator of dissent within Doré's party.

Perreault announced in November 1993 that public transit ridership had increased after five years of decline, notwithstanding the continuing economic downturn.

The MUCTC posted another $14 million surplus in early 1994.

Perreault was on the Quebec nationalist wing of the MCM.

Perreault sought the Parti Québécois nomination for the east-end Montreal division of Mercier in the buildup to the 1994 provincial election.

He initially lost to lawyer Giuseppe Sciortino, but this result was later annulled due to voting irregularities, and Perreault defeated Sciortino in a follow-up contest.

Party leader Jacques Parizeau had supported Sciortino's candidacy as a means of building the PQs support in Montreal's Italian community, and several senior party officials unsuccessfully pressured Perreault to drop out.

(There were also ideological differences between the candidates; Perreault was considered a centrist, and Sciortino was closer to the PQ's left wing.) The first round of balloting at the first nomination meeting saw Perreault receive 245 votes, compared with 114 for Sciortino, 89 for retired civil servant Claude Bernard, and 71 for Jean-Louis Hérivault.

Perreault's opponents then joined forces, and Sciortino was elected by fourteen votes on the second ballot.

The results were annulled when it was discovered that at least fifteen voters from Claude Bernard's group had given improper addresses.