Claudette Boyer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Claudette Boyer (born January 9, 1938 in Ottawa, Ontario) is a politician in Ontario, Canada. She was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1999 as a Liberal, but was later forced to leave the party as a result of legal difficulties.
Boyer was educated at the University of Ottawa, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Teacher's Certificate. She worked as a teacher for thirty years, and was actively involved in the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (Franco-Ontarian teachers association), the Ontario Teachers Federation and the Canadian Teachers Federation. She also became active in politics, serving as President of the Liberal Party of Canada and Ontario Liberal Party riding associations in Ottawa East. In 1996, she served as co-chair of the provincial party's leadership convention.
In the provincial election of 1999, Boyer was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the redistributed riding of Ottawa—Vanier, successor to Ottawa East. This seat is considered safe for the Liberal Party, and she defeated her Progressive Conservative opponent by almost 9,000 votes. According to some sources, Boyer was the first Franco-Ontarian woman to be elected to Queen's Park.
Boyer planned to serve two terms as an Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) before retiring, but her plans were derailed by legal difficulties shortly after her election. In August 1999, her husband accidentally backed their family van into Denis Grandmaitre, the son of former area MPP Bernard Grandmaitre. Boyer subsequently asked three other people to claim they were driving; one, her niece, agreed. This resulted in an obstruction-of-justice charge, to which Boyer pleaded guilty.
Boyer was suspended from the Liberal caucus for a six-month period in 2000, and was not permitted to return thereafter. She sat as an Independent Liberal MPP after March 26, 2001. Despite calls from some supporters, she did not run for re-election as an Independent candidate in 2003. Many believed that party leader Dalton McGuinty was unnecessarily severe in punishing Boyer, and by all accounts Boyer was extremely annoyed with the way she was treated by her party.
In 2004, she was awarded the Prix anniversaire by the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens in recognition of her years of service to the community.
