Jean Charest

John James "Jean" Charest (born June 24, 1958) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who served as the 29th premier of Quebec from 2003 to 2012.

Charest was born on June 24, 1958, in Sherbrooke, in Quebec's Eastern Townships.

His parents are Rita (Leonard), an Irish Quebecer, and Claude "Red" Charest, a French Canadian.

He is married to Michèle Dionne (since June 21, 1980), and they have three children, Amélie, Antoine, and Alexandra.

Charest is fully bilingual in French and English.

In the 1980 Quebec referendum, he failed to vote because he was getting married.

He obtained a law degree from the Université de Sherbrooke and was admitted to the Barreau du Québec in 1981.

Prior to that, he was a member of Parliament (MP) between 1984 and 1998.

Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Charest worked as a lawyer before becoming an MP following the 1984 federal election.

Charest worked as a lawyer until he was elected Progressive Conservative member of the Parliament of Canada for the riding (electoral district) of Sherbrooke in the 1984 election.

From 1984 to 1986, Charest served as Assistant Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole of the House of Commons.

After holding several Cabinet posts from 1986 to 1990 and from 1991 to 1993, he was the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1993 to 1998.

In 1986 he joined Brian Mulroney's government as a minister of state, but resigned from cabinet in 1990 after improperly speaking to a judge about an active court case.

In 1986, at age 28, Charest was appointed to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as minister of state (youth).

He was the youngest cabinet minister in Canadian history.

Charest was appointed minister of state (fitness and amateur sport) in 1988, but had to resign from cabinet in 1990 after improperly speaking to a judge about a case regarding the Canadian Track and Field Association.

Charest was involved in the proposal of the Meech Lake Accord (which failed to be ratified in June 1990 ) which would have given the province of Quebec the status of a "distinct society", extend provincial powers, and extensively change the constitution.

In 1990, he led a commission that recommended a companion accord that would address the concerns of other provinces, assert that the distinct society clause would be subject to the Charter, and would feature greater protections for minority language rights in the provinces.

The recommendations caused Mulroney's environment minister and Quebec lieutenant, Lucien Bouchard, to view the companion accord as a betrayal of Meech.

Bouchard later resigned from Cabinet and founded the Bloc Québécois, a pro-sovereigntist party.

He returned to cabinet in 1991 as the minister of the environment.

Charest returned to cabinet as minister of the environment in 1991.

In that role, he led the Canadian delegation at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Charest ran to succeed Mulroney as party leader and prime minister in the PCs' 1993 leadership election, but placed second to Kim Campbell.

Charest served as Campbell's industry minister and deputy prime minister.

After the PCs' defeat in the 1993 election, Charest succeeded Campbell as party leader.

When Mulroney announced his retirement as PC leader and prime minister, Charest was a candidate for the leadership of the party at the 1993 Progressive Conservative leadership convention.

Karlheinz Schreiber alleged he gave $30,000 in cash to Charest's campaign for the Tory leadership in 1993.

However Charest himself says it was only $10,000 although federal leadership election rules permitted such cash donations.

In the 1993 election, the PCs suffered the worst defeat for a governing party at the federal level.

Only two of the party's 295 candidates were elected, Charest and Elsie Wayne.

He led the PCs to a minor recovery in the 1997 election.

Charest left federal politics in 1998 and was elected to lead the Quebec Liberal Party, the province's main federalist political party.

He became premier of Quebec after the Liberals won the 2003 provincial election.

As of 2007, rules against such donations for provincial party leadership campaigns still do not exist in Québec.

Charest placed a strong second to Defence Minister Kim Campbell, who had held a large lead going into the convention.

Charest served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry, Science and Technology in Campbell's short-lived cabinet.

He won two more elections until he lost the 2012 election to the sovereigntist Parti Quebecois (PQ) and resigned as premier.

After politics, Charest worked as a consultant, including for Huawei on the Meng Wanzhou case and for its 5G network plans in Canada, and joined McCarthy Tétrault LLP as a partner.

Charest was a candidate in the 2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election, finishing a distant second to Pierre Poilievre.