André Boisclair (born April 14, 1966 in Montreal, Quebec) is a politician in Quebec, Canada. He is the leader of the Parti Québécois, the main social democratic and sovereigntist party in Quebec.

Between January 1996 and March 2003, Boisclair served as Citizenship and Immigration Minister and Social Solidarity Minister under former Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard and as Environment Minister under former Premier Bernard Landry. He won the Parti Québécois leadership election on November 15, 2005.

Boisclair grew up in the affluent francophone Montreal neighbourhood of Outremont. While attending Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, a private secondary school, he became the president of the Federation of Quebec College Students (university preparatory and technical trade schools known as CEGEP in Quebec.) After graduation he attended Université de Montréal, but dropped out after two years. As a result, Boisclair does not possess an undergraduate degree.

He joined the Parti Québécois in 1984, and in the 1989 Quebec general election he was elected to represent the Gouin riding as a PQ candidate. At 23 years old, he became the youngest member ever elected to the Quebec National Assembly. He also quickly garnered a reputation as a party animal in Quebec City's night-life scene. ^[1]

He served as a cabinet minister from 1998 to 2003, under PQ Premiers Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry, holding a variety of high profile portfolios. During his time in office, Boisclair and his chief of staff, Luc Doray, became the center of a drug and embezzlement scandal. After a routine audit, officials discovered that Doray submitted over $30,000 in false expense reports and authorities later discovered that Doray had used the money to feed his cocaine habit.^[2] Doray plead guilty to defrauding the government and during court testimony it was learned that Boisclair authorized some of the expenses.^[3], ^[4] The ensuing investigation cleared Boisclair of any wrongdoing - he was never accused nor charged with any crime. However, in September of 2005, Boisclair admitted to personally using cocaine between 1996 and 2003 while serving as a member of the Quebec legislature.

Boisclair continued to served as a member of the National Assembly until he resigned in August 2004 to attend the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. At the time of his resignation, Boisclair held the position of opposition parliamentary (house) leader. Boisclair completed the Master's in Public Administration program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government - a program that does not require students to hold a previous university degree. While at Harvard, Boisclair attended lectures by Michael Ignatieff and kept a blog recording his experience.

Boisclair currently represents the Montreal-area riding of Pointe-aux-Trembles in the National Assembly of Quebec.

After Bernard Landry resigned in June 2005, Boisclair entered the race to succeed Landry as the PQ's leader. Elected as the sixth leader of the Parti Québécois on November 15, 2005, Boisclair earned 53.8% of the party membership vote as compared to his closest rival, Pauline Marois, who garnered 30.6%. For the first time, the PQ allowed telephone voting, resulting in the participation of over 76% of the party membership. Polls taken at the time of his leadership victory in November 2005 suggested that Boisclair's Parti Québécois would win a landslide victory over the incumbent Liberal Party of Jean Charest.

After his election as party leader, Boisclair delivered a speech promising a sovereignty referendum within 2 years of a PQ victory in the next Quebec general election. During a joint press conference with Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe in Montreal on November 20, 2005, Boisclair decried Canada's Clarity Act as unacceptable. He stated that if elected Premier, he would ignore the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada on referendum question clarity.

Since taking the reins of the PQ, Boisclair has created political controversy within his own party. After a questionable appearance in a comedy sketch featuring a homosexual depiction of Stephen Harper and George W. Bush, and his recent attempt to distance the PQ from its traditional union base, a putsch to oust Boisclair developed. Led by Boisclair's predecessor, Bernard Landry, the plan failed and no real threat to Boisclair's leadership emerged. Pundits have speculated that the proximity of the Quebec general election contributed to the putsch's faliure.

Incidentally, if Boisclair becomes the Premier of Quebec, he would become the first openly gay person elected as a North American head of government. Boisclair already stands as the first openly gay politician in Canada to win the leadership of a party with legislative representation. (Previous openly gay Canadian political party leaders included Chris Lea of the Green Party of Canada and Allison Brewer of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party.)

On August 14, 2006, Boisclair was elected to the National Assembly in a by-election for the Montreal-area riding of Pointe-aux-Trembles.

In February 2007, Boisclair promised a dream team of high profile candidates for the anticipated Quebec general electon. Comparing his slate to the l'équipe du tonnerre (the thunder team) of former premier and Quiet revolution architect Jean Lesage, Boiscair announced that actor Pierre Curzi, former cabinet member Linda Goupil, tv journalist Bernard Drainville, academic Guy Lachapelle, union leader Marc Laviolette, and former Bloc Quebecois M.P.s Richard Marceau and Yvan Loubier will compose his team. On February 21, 2007 the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, Lise Thibault, dissolved parliament and called a general election for March 26, 2007.

Boisclair launched his campaign using the slogan "Reconstruisons notre Québec" (Let's reconstruct Quebec). At the beginning of the campaign, Boisclair's Parti Québécois stand 5 points behind the Quebec Liberals.

The PQ leader was victim of homophobic remarks while supporting PQ candidate, Sylvain Gaudreault, in the Jonquière riding. The Quebec social-media scene immediately condemmed Louis Champagne, the radio shock-jock who led the charge against Boisclair. Days later, Champagne was suspended by Corus group, the radio station corporate owner.

Boisclair stated throughout his campaign that education would be his main priority and that he would organize a new referendum as soon as possible. He also supported new measures to increase housing ownership to young families.

On March 14, 2007 during a campaign speech to students in Trois-Rivieres, Boisclair commented in French that "When I was in Boston, where I spent a year, I was surprised to see that on campus about one-third of the students doing their bachelor's degrees had slanting eyes" (in French: "les yeux bridés") when he was a student at Harvard University. The statement was made while he was discussing global competition from Asian economies like India and China and how young people from the countries leave to studie in the United States. Despite complaints from two race-relation groups, The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, and The Chinese Canadian National Council, Boisclair refused to apologize for the comments, stating

"I regularly, frequently use this expression and have absolutely no intention of apologizing. Maybe there's a nuance between the word in French and the word in English, but no way I will excuse myself. These people (of Asian origin) are a source of amazement for me. I've been to Japan. They were my friends, my colleagues. No way I will apologize."^{[5] [6]}

While much of the French-language media have presented this controversy as a matter only of concern to the English-language press, May Chiu, who in 2006 became the Bloc Québécois' first Chinese-Canadian candidate and is now a member of PQ candidate Zhao Xin Wu's campaign team, stated "I think that you've got to be extremely disconnected with reality if you don't realize that calling people slanted eyes has been an insult to Asians for the longest time, and is still used as an insult."^[7]

• Parti Québécois leadership election, 2005
• Quebec sovereignty movement
• Politics of Quebec
• History of Quebec

General

• Biography at the official National Assembly of Quebec website Template:En icon
• Parti Québécois Template:Fr icon