Liberal Leader: Jean Charest

Liberal Leader Jean Charest is going to the polls this election seeking political redemption and a second majority from Quebec voters.

Eighteen months have passed since Charest was censured by a bitter electorate angry at the Liberal government's ambitious overhaul of Quebec's heavy state apparatus.

Nearly seven out of 10 voters snubbed the Liberals in the 2007 election, in particular francophones, leaving Quebec's oldest political party clinging to power with just enough seats to form a minority, the first in the province since the 19th century.

Charest, one of the most disliked leaders in Quebec history, was barely re-elected and held on to his Sherbrooke seat with less than half a percentage point over his closest rival.

It was a political "tsunami," as the Liberals called it, and a humbled Charest said he accepted the "severe judgment" rendered by voters.

The Liberals underestimated the swell of support for Mario Dumont's Action Dmocratique du Qubec (ADQ) and its right-wing platform.

But Charest's reputation as an arrogant leader had also alienated many Quebecers who didn't like his Liberal brand of "tough love" reforms to clean up health care, reduce spending, raise university tuition and cut taxes.

After leading Quebec's minority government for a year and a half, the Liberal leader, a little wiser, is back on the campaign trail in the shadow of a global financial crisis that threatens the province's economic well-being.

He'll have to convince Quebecers he is the best leader to steer them through the expected economic slowdown and that he needs a strong majority in order to provide stability.

To that end, Charest will play up his concerns about the economy in contrast to the ADQ and Parti Qubcois, which have both talked about the pressing need for constitutional changes leading into the election.

The Liberal leader has the wind at his back with favorable polls and a weakened ADQ, freshly embarrassed by the defection of two members to Charest's ranks.

With his recent and surprising display of nationalist fervour in the federal election, Charest is banking on his ability to win back the confidence of Quebec's crucial francophone electorate, the key to his success at forming a majority.

Charest adjusts to minority

Governing in a minority forced the Liberal leader to change his tack and preach co-operation with opposition parties to preserve the government.

He often repeated how much he welcomed the challenge, describing some of the recent national assembly sessions as the most enjoyable of his career in Quebec City.

The Liberal leader appeared to relish his daily jousting with Opposition Leader Mario Dumont in question period. He incessantly accused Dumont of flip-flopping on issues while running a one-man party, even calling him a weathervane ("girouette" in French) last year, prompting legislature president Michel Bissonnet to ban the word and rebuke the premier.

Then he struck political gold this fall when two ADQ members crossed the floor to join the Liberals, declaring Charest a visionary leader of a party with purpose.

The Liberal leader made the minority government work, proving flexible and willing to co-operate and compromise with the opposition to pass two budgets and protect his government.

The Liberals pumped billions of dollars into road infrastructure in response to the Johnson Commission on the Laval overpass collapse, which exposed endemic problems in Quebec's highway system and management.

The Liberals also passed several pieces of important legislation, including stricter road safety laws and the so-called Anastasia's law on gun control (named after Anastasia De Sousa, the 18-year old Dawson College student killed in a 2006 shooting spree at the school.)

Charest boasted about his gender-parity cabinet, a pared down council of ministers including popular Health Minister Philippe Couillard and Finance Minister Monique Jrme-Forget.

His leadership was never seriously questioned even after he lost several key Liberal allies, including Couillard, Bissonnet, NDG member Russell Copeman and Gatineau member Roch Cholette, who all resigned from the government this year.

He still has Jrme-Forget, Christine St-Pierre and Raymond Bachand at his sides, and Charest is promising new star recruits for this election campaign to pad the Liberal ranks.

Charest plays Quebec identity card

In his first term as premier, Charest was incredibly unpopular and so were the reforms he and his government imposed on the province's public institutions and health system.

But in his second term, Charest nimbly refashioned himself as the "defender of Quebec's interests," tapping into the province's deep sense of distinct identity and values.

Over the last year, the Liberal leader has railed against the federal Conservative government, taking remarkably different positions from Prime Minister Stephen Harper on matters ranging from climate change to young offenders and gun control.

In the federal campaign, Charest intensified his efforts, attacking the Tories on several occasions for accepting support from the ADQ, demanding greater control for Quebec of culture, communications and securities regulation and vowing to block unilateral attempts to reform the senate.

Charest blasted Harper for cutting cultural funding and for failing to address Quebec's demands for greater control over its affairs.

Once seen as the most federalist Quebec premier in history, Charest borrowed a page from the late Robert Bourassa, who as Liberal leader in the 1970s, lobbied in favour of cultural sovereignty for the province.

Charest's play solidified his distance from Harper's Conservative government, helped turn the Quebec campaign against the Tories and contributed to blocking their majority.

His efforts earned praise from the Bloc Qubcois, which conceded Charest understood Quebec's nationalist sentiment.

Charest eloquently expounded on the significance of French in Quebec at two high-profile events: the celebrations marking Quebec City's 400th anniversary and the recent Francophonie summit.

It all helped enhance the Liberal leader's stature among the Qubcois and strengthened his credentials in a province where nationalist politics have borne fruit for past Liberal premiers.

Charest will now take that message to the campaign frontlines in search of francophone support, positioning himself as the prime defender of Quebec's, and especially French Quebec's, rights and interests in Ottawa.

Future of French, Quebec identity dominates minority government

The strategy also bolstered Charest after a year in which the future of the French language in Quebec dominated the provincial legislature.

Charest fielded attacks from PQ Leader Pauline Marois and ADQ head Mario Dumont, who accused him of not doing enough to protect French in Montreal while increasing immigration quotas for the province.

They launched the offensive after a report from the province's language watchdog, the Office qubcois de la langue franaise, was released last winter suggesting Quebec was becoming more linguistically diverse but the French-speaking population in Montreal had dropped below 50 per cent for the first time. The number of allophones meanwhile was increasing, a trend the report warned would spread with time (the report also concluded an increasing number of immigrants overall were choosing French as their second language).

Charest defended the government's decision to welcome more immigrants as the key to Quebec's future vitality and a solution to an anticipated skilled worker shortage.

He kept the PQ in check on other language issues, accusing the sovereigntist party of wanting to create two classes of Quebecers when it proposed last year the creation of a Quebec citizenship that would require fluency in French for all who wanted to seek public office.

He stressed the primordial place of French in Quebec identity and values after the Bouchard-Taylor Commission report on reasonable accommodation of minorities was released last spring, urging Quebec to get over its collective identity crisis and adapt to its secular, pluralistic reality.

Charest will try to capitalize on those efforts, selling the Liberals as the most inclusive, tolerant party (compared to the ADQ and PQ) while positioning them as the staunchest defenders of Quebec's langue franaise.

Charest a career politician who served Tories first

Jean Charest was born in Sherbrooke on June 24, 1958. He studied law in his hometown and was called to the Quebec Bar in 1981. Charest launched his political career on the federal scene, winning a seat in Sherbrooke for the Conservatives in 1984 at the tender age of 26.

He lost a bid for the Conservative leadership to Kim Campbell in 1993 but got his just desserts that same year when he was one of the few Conservative MPs to survive a Liberal trouncing of the Tories in the federal election. Charest took over as Conservative leader months later and was a pivotal force in efforts to rebuild the shattered party.

The Quebec Liberal party recruited him to lead a fight against the reigning PQ and then premier Lucien Bouchard. Charest rallied the Liberals, who won the popular vote but lost the 1998 election. He served as the Opposition leader in the national assembly until 2003, when he steered the Liberals to a solid victory over the Parti Qubcois, ending the sovereigntist party's nine-year reign.

His majority government launched an ambitious plan to modernize Quebec institutions, reform health care, cut taxes, raise university tuition and reduce spending, sparking months of rolling strikes and fuelling public antipathy toward the Liberals.

Charest was re-elected by the narrowest of margins in 2007, but the Liberals suffered a sound beating at the expense of the ADQ and were reduced to a minority.

Charest is married to Michle Dionne and has three children.