Lionel Jonathan Perez (born 1970 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian lawyer, entrepreneur and member of Montreal City Council for the arrondissement of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace in the District of Darlington. He won a decisive victory beating his closest rival by over 20% of the vote in his first election on November 1, 2009 running under the Union-Montréal Party of incumbent Mayor Gérald Tremblay.[1][2]
He was appointed to serve on the Commission on Finances, Administrative Services, and Human Capital.[3] He was also named to the Land Use and Planning Commission of the Communauté Metropolitaine de Montréal. At the Borough level, he was the official elected representative on the Comité consultatif d'urbanise (CCU). In December, 2010 he was named Vice-President, and ranking member of the governing union Montreal Party, to the new Commission on the Examination of Contracts.[4]
Before being elected, Lionel Perez was a practicing lawyer and co-founder of the Canadian legal document filing service company CorporationCentre.ca.[5] Under his guidance, CorporationCentre.ca has garnered much recognition from numerous publications including the PROFIT HOT 50[6] and PROFIT 100[7] rankings, both published annually by PROFIT Magazine, Enterprise Magazine[8] and the L’actualité Magazine[9]. Lionel has also developed an expertise in advising startups and has written on the business and legal aspects of business formation and its impact on small business owners[10].
Prior to founding CorporationCentre.ca, Lionel Perez practiced corporate commercial law with a technology law firm advising start-ups and publicly traded corporations. Lionel holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and a Bachelors of Civil Law (LL.B.) from the Faculty of Law of the Université de Montréal. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.
Lionel Perez made Canadian news headlines[11] in May 2011 after he spoke up against the use of inappropriate Twitter remarks by a fellow councillor during council meetings. Opposition city councillor Benoit Dorais posted insulting comments on his Twitter account about the Union Montreal members during Council, some of which were directed at Perez. The comments provoked Perez to bring the issue to the attention of Council so that an examination of the rules governing council`s proceedings should be extended to cover social media as well. Perez was not against the use of Twitter during Council meetings, but rather wished to ensure the appropriateness of the language used by council members on Twitter while in session. Perez’s intervention resulted in a new policy[12] on Twitter use by councillors, allowing councillors to use Twitter while council is in session, but with caution against using insulting or “unparliamentary” language as set out in a list of 225 words and phrases banned by Quebec’s National Assembly. The ruling is believed to be the first of its kind governing a municipal council in Canada.
In October 2010, Lionel Perez appeared as legal counsel on behalf the JORCCQ before the Quebec National Assembly commission to present its brief on the government’s draft legislation (Bill 94) governing reasonable when receiving or delivering government services[13]. While supportive of the government’s position of “laicité ouverte” and the draft bill overall, the JORCCQ believes that the legislation, stemming from the debate over reasonable accommodations for religious and ethnic groups, raised 3 issues that were of concern: (1) the bill as drafted may be interpreted to create a hierarchy of individual rights and freedoms which is contrary established jurisprudence; (2) The requirement to have ones face uncovered for “communication” with government officials was too vague and would likely lead to it being deemed unconstitutional. The JORCCQ suggested modifying the requirement when the offer or delivery of the service in question; and (3) the draft bill should include a clear definition of “laicité ouverte” (open secularism) to avoid potentially divergent definitions by the courts thereby aggravating social tensions.