Benoît Pelletier
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Benoît Pelletier (born in Quebec City, Quebec, January 10, 1960) is a politician and lawyer in Quebec, Canada. He is the current Liberal Party Member of the National Assembly (MNA) for the provincial riding of Chapleau in the Outaouais region . He is the current Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs, Francophones, the Agreement on Internal Trade, the Reform of Democratic Institutions and Access to Information in the Jean Charest government. He is also the minister for the Outaouais region.
He studied law at the Université Laval in 1981 and obtained a licence and was admitted to the Barreau du Quebec soon after. He worked for the federal Ministry of Justice as a legal adviser.
He received a masters degree in law at the University of Ottawa in 1989 where he taught there for several years and obtained an award for best teacher of the year in 1998.
He travelled to France in the late 1990s and 2000s and received two doctors degree in law at the Paris and the Marseille universities.
At the same time in 1998, Pelletier entered politics and won the 1998 provincial election in the Chapleau riding which includes much of the old city of Gatineau. During his tenure in the Opposition he was the critic for Intergovernmental Affairs.
When the Liberal Party gained power in 2003, Pelletier was named the minister for this portfolio. During his tenure, he treated the issue about the fiscal imbalance, Quebec's position in the international community as well as the Federal Liberal government's sponsorship scandal that involved some non-governmental members of the provincial party including former Liberal minister Marc-Yvan Côté.
In the 2007 elections, Pelletier was re-elected for a third term defeating ADQ Jocelyn Dumais and Edith Gendron, the Parti Quebecois candidate and wife of Gatineau MP Richard Nadeau.
