The Bloc continued to slide in most of the 2003 opinion polls following the 2003 Quebec election which was won by the federalist Quebec Liberal Party led by Jean Charest.

' According to the PI character played by Morgan, Charest had all the characteristics to become Prime Minister of Canada except that he was not born by a virgin.

* Jean Charest, twenty-ninth Premier of Quebec, was born in Sherbrooke.

Premier Jean Charest was a federal cabinet minister with the now-defunct Progressive Conservative Party.

Jean Charest was born on June 24, 1958 in Sherbrooke, located in the Eastern Townships ( today known as the Estrie region ).

" Charest responded that, his mother being an Irish-Quebecer, it was the Irish priest who baptized him that wrote John on the baptism certificate, but that he was always known as Jean in his family.

When Mulroney announced his retirement as PC leader and prime minister, Charest was a candidate for the leadership of the party at the 1993 Progressive Conservative leadership convention.

However Charest himself says it was only $ 10, 000.

Charest himself was reelected fairly handily in Sherbrooke, taking 56 percent of the vote.

As the only surviving member of what turned out to be the last PC Cabinet, Charest was appointed interim party leader and confirmed in the post in April 1995.

The party was back from the brink, but Charest considered the result a disappointment.

Charest was considered by many to be the best hope for the federalist QLP to defeat the sovereignist Parti Québécois government.

The Charest government was deeply unpopular during its first years in office, enjoying a public approval rating of below 50 per cent in most opinion polls and falling to the low twenties in voter support.

In the first few weeks after André Boisclair was elected leader of the PQ, polls showed that Charest and the Liberals would be roundly defeated in the next election.

There was, however, significant tension between himself and members of the party, most notably the former Bourassa cabinet minister Pierre Paradis ( whom Charest excluded from his cabinet ) and the resignations of several important members of his cabinet, notably Finance Minister Yves Seguin, Justice Minister Marc Bellemare, and Environment Minister Thomas Mulcair.

On election night, early numbers had showed Charest losing his seat of Sherbrooke to his PQ opponent ; however, this situation was reversed once it became apparent that the advanced poll ballot boxes which heavily favoured Charest had not yet been counted.

In the 1980 sovereignty referendum, Charest failed to vote, stating he was too busy.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, Charest was involved in the constitutional debate that resulted from Quebec's refusal to sign the Canadian Constitution of 1982.

During the 1995 Referendum on Quebec's sovereignty, Charest was Vice-President of the " No " campaign ( Comité national des Québécoises et des Québécois pour le NON ).

During the debate in the Canadian Parliament over recognizing Quebec as a nation within Canada, Charest stated that Quebec was a " nation " no matter what other parts of Canada said — that this was not up to anyone else to define.

Manning was attacked, however, for not appearing at federalist rallies in Quebec, as Prime Minister Chrétien and new Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest had done.

Charest therefore became the first ( and as it turned out, only ) leader of francophone descent of the Progressive Conservative Party.

In April 1998, Charest gave in to considerable public and political pressure, especially among business circles, to leave federal politics and become leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.

A poll conducted by Léger Marketing for Le Devoir placed the Liberals at 34 per cent against 32 per cent for the PQ and 24 per cent for the ADQ, with Charest obtaining a higher personal approval rating than the PQ leader.

Charest lost his own Sherbrooke riding in the election, and subsequently announced his resignation as party leader the following day.

However, these attempts to restore the Reform Party's image as a tolerant political party were damaged in the 1997 federal election when the Reform Party released a controversial television advertisement where the faces of four Quebec politicians: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest, and the separatist Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard were crossed out followed by a message saying that Quebec politicians had dominated the federal government for too long and that the Reform Party would end this favouritism towards Quebec.

The party ran an election ad in which the faces of four key Quebec leaders ( Prime Minister Chrétien, PC leader Charest, former Bloc Québécois chief Lucien Bouchard, and new Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe ) were crossed out, saying that Canada had been governed too long by Quebec politicians.

During that time, Jean Charest stepped down as leader of the Progressive Conservatives and former Prime Minister Joe Clark took over the party and opposed any union with the Reform Party.

In Quebec, the Liberal Party benefited from the collapse of support for the Progressive Conservative Party, after the PCs ' popular Québécois leader Jean Charest had resigned in 1998 and was replaced by former Prime Minister Joe Clark who was unpopular in Quebec which resulted in three PC members from Quebec defecting to join the Liberal Party prior to the election.

Some Reform Party supporters were frustrated by the party's decision to expand its political base into Quebec as they continued to believe that the party should represent English Canada and others from the right-wing and populist faction of the party were angry that Manning punished MPs Bob Ringma and David Chatters During the campaign the Reform Party released a controversial television advertisement where the faces of four Quebec politicians: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest, and the separatist Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard were crossed out followed by a message saying that Quebec politicians had dominated the federal government for too long and that the Reform Party would end this favoritism towards Quebec.

Charest and the Progressive Conservatives benefited from supporting distinct society in Quebec and resulted in the party rapidly rising in popularity amongst both francophones and non-francophones in Quebec, with polls indicating that Quebec voters preferred Charest over Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Québécois.

He served as Liberal party leader and leader of the Opposition until 1998 when he was succeeded by Jean Charest.

In 2003, the Quebec Liberal Party, with Jean Charest as the leader won the 2003 provincial election and promised a referendum would be held for the possibility of demerging municipalities.

By contrast, Quebec Liberal leader Jean Charest was able to put Bernard Landry of the Parti Québécois on the defensive.

In 1998, Jean Charest stepped down as federal Progressive Conservative leader to make the move to Quebec provincial politics, becoming leader of the federalist Liberal Party of Quebec ( unaffiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada ).

For example, in the 1997 federal election, Bloc Québécois MP Suzanne Tremblay attacked Charest by saying, " First, let's recall who Jean Charest really is ... his real name is John, that's what's on his birth certificate, not Jean.

Much of the fiscal policy of the Charest government has been based upon the expectation that new revenues could be obtained from a resolution of the fiscal imbalance believed to exist between the federal and provincial governments.

In the last week of the campaign, Charest promised an additional $ 700 million in tax cuts — some of it coming for the additional equalization money from the 2007 federal budget ; reduction of hospital wait times ; improvement and increase of French courses at school ; an increase of the number of daycare spaces ; and an increase in tuition fees for university students ($ 50 per semester until 2012 ).

With a matter of months before the accord deadline, a commission led by prominent federal Tory cabinet minister Jean Charest recommended some changes to the accord.

Bachand was one of many who unsuccessfully tried to convince Charest to remain in federal politics for at least one more election.

Jean Charest became interim leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives following the party's defeat in the 1993 election, in which Kim Campbell lost her own seat.

When Charest subsequently decided to stand as a candidate, he resigned as leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives, and Elsie Wayne became the party's interim leader.

Jean Charest had also left federal politics, where he had been leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

When former Liberal Premier and then leader of the Opposition Daniel Johnson, Jr. decided to quit politics in March 1998, Jean Charest resigned as leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party to replace Johnson as leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.

In 1998, federal PC leader Jean Charest moved to provincial politics as the leader of the Quebec Liberals.

The idea for such a body had long been present, but it was Quebec Premier Jean Charest who suggested it in preparation for negotiations with the federal government.

Reid remained active in the party as National Director of the federal Progressive Conservative party while Jean Charest was party leader.

Quebec Liberal leader Daniel Johnson and federal Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest also asked Harris to keep the hospital open.

In the 2012 Quebec election, he unseated the incumbent Premier of Quebec Jean Charest who was also his predecessor for the federal riding.

Not long after the re-election of the federal Conservatives to a second minority government, and with the global financial crisis increasingly coming to the foreground of current events, Jean Charest precipitated the fall of his own minority government, arguing before the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec that the National Assembly was no longer functional.

In April 1998, Charest left federal politics to seek the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, and Tory support in Quebec declined under Joe Clark's leadership.