Pierre Langlois

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Pierre Langlois is a Canadian economist and political strategist.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he graduated from the Université de Montréal with a B.A. (1998) and a M.A (1999) in economics. His master dissertation paper was on growth theory with empirical evidences from U.S. metropolitan areas. He opted to pursue his graduate studies in Finance at Boston College, but finally accepted a position as an economist at the Ministry of Finance of Quebec in August 1999. In 2000, he accepted a position as an associate economist at the Conference Board of Canada.

[edit] Political thought and involvement

Langlois is known to be a fiscal conservative – social progressive and to be influenced by endogenous growth theory and new Keynesian economics.

He follows the work of academic economists: Paul Romer, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Robert Barro, Greg Mankiw, Philippe Aghion and Alberto Alesina.

Langlois was a student activist between 1994 and 1999, where he was elected president of the Economics Student Association of the Université de Montréal. He was also elected to the Fédération des associations étudiantes du campus de l'université de Montréal (FAECUM). He was shortly forced to resign after he publicly supported the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in the 1997 federal election. He also organized several political conferences on campus during the 1995 referendum. He invited Mario Dumont, Rodrigue Tremblay and Stephen Harper, who had just been elected as a Reform Party of Canada Member of Parliament.

The 1995 Université de Montréal conference of Stephen Harper was cut short because of a bomb threat. It is unknown if the bomb threat was aimed at Harper or the next door conference of Jacques Parizeau.

He was first involved in Canadian federal politics as an active supporter of Jean Charest’s Progressive Conservative Party during the 1997 election. Charest’s electoral platform, let the future begin, was aggressive in terms of fiscal relief and was the first political manifesto to recognize the structure of what would later be known as the Canadian fiscal imbalance.

In 1998, Pierre Langlois followed Charest to the Quebec Liberal Party, where he became a key organizer in the La Pinière riding. Shortly after, disappointed by the lack of fiscal conservatism in the Liberals' program and by the close ties between the federal and the provincial Liberals, Langlois left the party. He also supported Michael Fortier in his long-shot bid to gain the Progressive Conservative leadership.

In 2001, Langlois took a position in favour of Quebec's sovereignty. His position is not based on ethnic nationalism or civic nationalism like most members of the PQ. He states that smaller countries can achieve more efficient governance than large and complex federated states. Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Ireland are often cited by Langlois as examples.

While he was working at the Ottawa-based Conference Board of Canada, he was hired by newly-appointed Parti Quebecois finance minister, Pauline Marois. Langlois quickly became a top advisor. He was highly involved in the budget and other legislative operations and was a key line writer for the daily question period.

In 2003, Langlois was appointed by the office of the Premier of Quebec as an economic advisor for the upcoming provincial election. He was mandated, at the same time, by Marois to try to control the PQ’s electoral spending promises. It was well-documented that the last budget that Marois delivered had no spending margins. Pierre Langlois is seen in the movie À hauteur d’homme, which is a documentary of the 2003 PQ campaign.

Between 2003 and 2005, Langlois served as a political content advisor to leadership candidate Pauline Marois. In 2004, he was elected president of a PQ local association in the riding of La Prairie, his hometown – in an attempt to get as many Marois supporters as PQ officials.

In 2005, Langlois was approached to replace Marcel Lussier, who was fighting cancer, as the Bloc Québécois candidate in the Brossard—La Prairie riding. He refused, alleging his already packed political agenda.

During the 2006 federal election, Bloc Québécois officials asked Langlois to manage Lussier’s campaign against incumbent Liberal minister Jacques Saada. Langlois delivered a surprise victory for the Bloc in this traditionally Liberal riding.

In June 2006, Langlois declined to run for the PQ in the riding of La Prairie for the upcoming provincial elections, alleging family reasons.

Pierre Langlois is currently working as an economist and a regulation expert.