Louise Harel

Louise Harel
City Councillor for Maisonneuve–Longue-Pointe
Incumbent
Assumed office 2009
Preceded by	Claire St-Arnaud
MNA for Maisonneuve
In office April 13, 1981 – 1989
Preceded by	Georges Lalande
Succeeded by	Riding Dissolved
MNA for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
In office 1989 – November 5, 2008
Preceded by	First Member
Succeeded by	Carole Poirier
Personal details
Born	April 22, 1946 (1946-04-22) Sainte-Thérèse-de-Blainville, Quebec
Political party	Parti Québécois Vision Montréal
Residence	Montreal, Quebec

Louise Harel (born April 22, 1946) is a Quebec politician. In 2005 she served as interim leader of the Parti Québécois following the resignation of Bernard Landry. She was also interim leader of the opposition in the National Assembly of Quebec. She represented the riding of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in the Montreal region prior to her resignation from the legislature in 2008. She ran for Mayor of Montreal as the representative of the Vision Montreal municipal political party in the 2009 election, but was defeated by incumbent Gérald Tremblay.

Life and career

Harel was born in Sainte-Thérèse-de-Blainville, Quebec. She graduated in 1977 from the Université de Montréal with a law degree and was admitted to the bar in 1978. She worked at the national secretariat, the Centre des services sociaux de Montréal and the Social Development Council of Metropolitan Montreal as a staff member. She has been a member of the Parti Québécois (PQ) since 1970 and was the president of the party in Montreal-Centre in the 1970s and the vice-president of the party province wide from 1979 to 1981.

She was first elected to the National Assembly in the 1981 election as the Member of the National Assembly (MNA) for Maisonneuve. In 1984, she was appointed Minister of Cultural Communities and Immigration by Quebec Premier René Lévesque, and served until the government's electoral defeat in the 1985 election. She retained her seat that year and in 1989, however, and served in opposition for the next five years.

When the PQ returned to power in the 1994 election under the leadership of Jacques Parizeau, she returned to cabinet as Minister of Employment and minister responsible for immigration.

After being re-elected in 1998, she later served as Minister of Municipal Affairs. During her tenure as minister, she tabled a bill which forced the merger of several small municipalities into one entity and affected all key cities such as Gatineau, Montreal, Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, Saguenay, Longueuil and Sherbrooke. The project, which was implemented in 2002 was met with mixed reviews and later become a key issue during the 2003 provincial elections.

In 2002, she became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the National Assembly, and remained in that capacity until the 2003 election, after which she joined the PQ on the opposition benches.

Harel served as interim PQ leader and leader of the opposition until a leadership election chose André Boisclair as leader on November 15, 2005. She was not a candidate in the leadership election. She continued to serve as leader of the opposition until PQ leader André Boisclair won his seat in the National Assembly on August 14, 2006.

She was re-elected in the 2007 elections and named the PQ critic in social services and later she was also giving the portfolio of Status of Women. In October 2008, she announced that she will not seek another mandate.

Montreal mayoralty campaign

Harel ran for mayor of Montreal for the November 1, 2009 Montreal municipal election on behalf of the municipal Vision Montréal party. To that end, she has been studying to improve her poor English, a liability in a city where almost 20% the population is Anglophone. She has stated that the rise of "ethnic neighbourhoods" in the city is an undesirable situation, because she believes that Montrealers should feel part of the whole city, not just of their own borough. A central aspect of her campaign has been to centralize municipal government.

She came in second in the mayoralty race, and became city councillor for the district of Maisonneuve–Longue-Pointe. She announced she would remain leader of Vision Montréal and opposition leader at City Hall.

Electoral record

Montreal municipal election, 2009

	Candidate	Party	Vote	%
	Gérald Tremblay (incumbent)	Union Montréal	159,020	37.90%
	Louise Harel	Vision Montréal	137,301	32.73%
	Richard Bergeron	Projet Montréal	106,768	25.45%
	Louise O'Sullivan	Parti Montréal - Ville-Marie	8,490	2.02%
	Michel Bédard	Parti Fierté Montréal	5,297	1.26%
	Michel Prairie	Independent	2,648	0.63%

Quebec general election, 1989
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Parti Québécois	Louise Harel	14,639	63.50
	Liberal	Yvon Lewis	6,479	29.28
	Green	Jean-Pierre Bonefant	685	2.97
	NDP	Jocelyne Dupuis	326	1.41
	Workers	Ginette St-Amour	144	0.62
	Progressive Conservative	Suzanne Ethier	141	0.61
	Parti indépendantiste	Michel Larocque	138	0.60
	Independent	Keith Meadowcroft	114	0.49
	Marxist-Leninist	Christiane Robidoux	60	0.26
	Republic of Canada	Daniel Ricard	56	0.24

See also

• Parti Québécois Crisis, 1984

External links

• Biography at National Assembly of Quebec website (French)

Political offices
Preceded by Jean-Pierre Charbonneau	President of the National Assembly 2002-03-12 – 2003-06-04	Succeeded by Michel Bissonnet
Preceded by Bernard Landry	Leader of the Parti Québécois 2005	Succeeded by André Boisclair
Preceded by Bernard Landry	Leader of the Opposition in Quebec 2005-06-06 – 2006-08-21	Succeeded by André Boisclair
Preceded by	Minister of Employment 1994–1998	Succeeded by Diane Lemieux
Preceded by Remy Trudel	Minister of Municipal Affairs 1998–2003	Succeeded by Andre Boisclair
Preceded by Benoit Labonté	Leader of Vision Montréal 2009–	Succeeded by incumbent
Preceded by Benoit Labonté	Leader the Opposition, Montreal City Council 2009–	Succeeded by incumbent
Preceded by Claire St-Arnaud	City Councillor, Maisonneuve–Longue-Pointe 2009–	Succeeded by incumbent