Richard Holden (politician)

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Richard B. Holden (7 July 1931 – September 18, 2005) was a lawyer and Member of the National Assembly (MNA) of Quebec, Canada.

He had first entered politics running unsuccessfully for the Progressive Conservatives in the 1979 federal election in the riding of Dollard placing a distant second place.

He was elected the National Assembly in the 1989 election as a candidate of the federalist, English-rights Equality Party, but was expelled from the Equality Party for balking at party discipline.

After sitting as an Independent, he shocked his predominantly English-speaking Westmount constituents when he crossed the floor to join the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ) in 1992. Holden's brother, Rodney, stopped speaking to him and threatened to change his name as a result of the defection.

Following his defeat as a PQ candidate in neighbouring Verdun riding in the 1994 election, the PQ government appointed Holden to the province's rental housing board on which he served until 1999.

Suffering from chronic, debilitating back pain, Holden committed suicide at the age of 74 by jumping from the eighth-floor balcony of his Atwater Market apartment in Montreal.