Rodrigue Biron

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Rodrigue Biron (born September 8, 1934) is a politician in Quebec, Canada. He was leader of the Union Nationale political party from 1976 to 1980, when he joined the Parti Québécois.

[edit] Biography

Biron served as Mayor of the Town of Sainte-Croix, Quebec, from 1971 to 1973. He became the leader of the conservative Union Nationale (UN) party leader on May 23, 1976. The UN had once dominated Quebec provinicial politics, but in the 1973 election, it lost all of the seats that it had held in the previous National Assembly. However, the party returned to the National Assembly of Quebec by winning a by-election in 1974.

Biron led the party to a modest comeback in the 1976 election, winning 11 seats. The party even elected a member (William Shaw) in an anglophone riding, capitalizing on discontent with Bill 22 language legislation passed by the Liberal Party of Quebec government of Robert Bourassa.

The 1976 election had been won by the sovereigntist Parti Québécois (PQ), however, and the nationalist vote on which the UN had previously counted for support gravitated toward that party. Biron resigned as Union Nationale leader on March 3, 1980, and joined the PQ in November of that year.

In the 1981 election, he was elected as a PQ member of the National Assembly, and served in various cabinet posts. Meanwhile, his former party the Union Nationale was once again wiped out in the 1981 election, this time for good—the party never won another seat, and eventually ceased to exist.

The PQ lost the 1985 election, and Biron lost his seat. In 1997, he unsuccessfully ran for the leadership of the Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party operating at the federal level of politics.