Lucien Bouchard
Lucien Bouchard, G.O.Q., lawyer, politician and premier of Québec (born 22 December 1938 in Saint-Coeur-de-Marie, Quebec). In the 1980s, Bouchard was a member of Brian Mulroney’s government, serving first as secretary of state and then as minister of the environment. Not long before the ultimate failure of the Meech Lake Accord, however, Bouchard left Cabinet after expressing his concerns with the process. With a group of Liberal and Conservative members of Parliament, he formed a new party, the Bloc Québécois, whose goal is to represent the interests of Québec in the House of Commons. A key figure in the 1995 Quebec referendum, Bouchard succeeded Jacques Parizeau in January 1996 as premier of Québec, a position he held until March 2001. He then returned to practising law.