Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Gilles Duceppe" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Gilles Duceppe
Duceppe in 2011
Leader of the Opposition
In office March 15, 1997 – June 1, 1997
Preceded by	Michel Gauthier
Succeeded by	Preston Manning
In office January 16, 1996 – February 17, 1996
Preceded by	Lucien Bouchard
Succeeded by	Michel Gauthier
Leader of theBloc Québécois
In office June 10, 2015 – October 22, 2015
Preceded by	Mario Beaulieu
Succeeded by	Rhéal Fortin (interim)
In office March 15, 1997 – May 2, 2011
Preceded by	Michel Gauthier
Succeeded by	Vivian Barbot (interim)
In office January 16, 1996 – February 17, 1996 (interim)
Preceded by	Lucien Bouchard
Succeeded by	Michel Gauthier
Member of theCanadian Parliament forLaurier—Sainte-Marie
In office August 13, 1990 – May 2, 2011
Preceded by	Jean-Claude Malépart
Succeeded by	Hélène Laverdière
Personal details
Born	(1947-07-22)July 22, 1947 (age 78) Montreal,Quebec, Canada
Political party	Bloc Québécois
Other political affiliations	Workers' Communist Party (formerly) Independent (1990–1993)
Spouse	Yolande Brunelle
Children	Amélie,Alexis
Profession	Orderly union organizer political analyst
Signature

Gilles Duceppe (French pronunciation:[ʒildzysɛp]; born July 22, 1947) is a Canadian retired politician, proponent of theQuebec sovereignty movement and former leader of the federal political party,Bloc Québécois. He was aMember of Parliament in theHouse of Commons of Canada for over 20 years and was the leader of the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois for 15 years in three stints: 1996, 1997–2011 and in 2015. He was Leader of the Official Opposition in theParliament of Canada from March 17, 1997, to June 1, 1997. He resigned as party leader after the2011 election, in which he lost his ownseat toNew Democratic Party (NDP) candidateHélène Laverdière and his party suffered a heavy defeat; however, he returned four years later to lead the party into the2015 election.^[1][2] After being defeated in his own riding by Laverdière again, he resigned once more.^[3]

Duceppe was born inMontreal, Quebec, the son of Hélène (née Rowley) and actorJean Duceppe. His maternal grandfather was John James Rowley,British by birth,Irish by descent, and ahome child.^[4] Duceppe once joked about his British roots, saying, "I'm abloke who turned Bloc."^[5]

Duceppe has told the story of ananglophone Grade 6 teacher slapping him after he complained about preferential treatment being given to anglophone students.^[6] Duceppe claimed he slapped the teacher back. He became a sovereigntist by the age of 20, inspired byRené Lévesque and the founding of theMouvement Souveraineté-Association.^[7]

Duceppe completed his high school studies at the Collège Mont-Saint-Louis. He then studied political science at theUniversité de Montréal but did not complete his program of study. While attending theUniversité de Montréal, he became general manager of the school's newspaper,Quartier Latin. In his youth, he advocatedcommunism, and held membership in theWorkers' Communist Party of Canada (WCP), aMaoist group. Duceppe later claimed that his three-year membership in the WCP was a mistake brought on by a search for absolute answers.^[7][8]

However, during this period (which lasted well into his thirties) he subscribed to militant Maoist ideology and was fired from his job as a hospital orderly for belligerent activities.^[9][8] Duceppe even went so far as to intentionally spoil his1980 sovereignty-association referendum ballot arguing that Québécois should instead focus their efforts on staying united to fight capitalism.^[8]

Before becoming amember of Parliament, Duceppe worked as a hospital orderly and later became a trade union negotiator. In 1968 he became vice-president of the Union générale des étudiants du Québec (General Union of Quebec Students) and in 1970 manager of theUniversité de Montréal student paper,Quartier latin. In 1972 he launched his career in community and union settings, as moderator for the citizen's committee ofHochelaga-Maisonneuve, then in 1977 as a representative for theRoyal Victoria Hospital employees. In 1981 he became a union organizer for theConfédération des syndicats nationaux (Confederation of National Trade Unions), where he became a negotiator in 1986.^[8]

In 1990, Duceppe was elected to theHouse of Commons of Canada in aby-election for the eastern Montreal riding ofLaurier—Sainte-Marie. He defeatedLiberalDenis Coderre, who would later serve alongside Duceppe in Parliament before becomingMayor of Montreal. Duceppe would be handily re-elected at each election from 1993 to 2008.

Duceppe originally sat as an independent because the Bloc had not been registered byElections Canada as a political party. All of the Bloc's other Members of Parliament hadcrossed the floor from either theProgressive Conservative Party or theLiberal Party earlier that year. Duceppe's victory demonstrated — for the first time — that the party had electoral support in Quebec and could win elections. Previously, manypundits (and members of other parties) predicted that the Bloc would not gain traction with ordinary voters in Quebec.^[10]

In 1996, whenLucien Bouchard stepped down as Bloc leader to become leader of theParti Québécois, Duceppe served asinterim leader of the party.Michel Gauthier eventually became the official leader later that year. However, Gauthier's lack of visibility in both Quebec and English Canada coupled with his weak leadership resulted in the party forcing him out in 1997. Duceppe won the ensuing leadership contest and became the official leader of the Bloc Québécois andLeader of the Opposition.^[8]

In the1997 general election, the Bloc lostofficial opposition status, slipping to third place in the House of Commons behindPreston Manning'sReform Party. During the campaign, Duceppe visited a cheese factory where he was photographed wearing a hairnet resembling a shower cap, which was widely parodied on Canadian television.^[8][11]

The Bloc lost more support during the2000 election, winning just 38 seats. Over this period, critics derided Duceppe as an ineffectual campaigner, though no serious challenge to his leadership emerged.^[8]

WhenJean Chrétien stepped down as Prime Minister, to be succeeded byPaul Martin, the Bloc's fortunes improved markedly, particularly after thesponsorship scandal erupted. Duceppe strongly criticized the Liberals over the misuse and misdirection of public funds intended for government advertising in Quebec. During the election's national debates, Duceppe's lucid explanations of Bloc Québécois policies and his chastising of the other national party leaders' promises, resulted in both the French and English media ruling him the best speaker. In the2004 election, Duceppe's Bloc won 54 seats in the Commons, equalling what it had won in its 1993 breakthrough, while Martin's Liberals were reduced to a minority government.

With Chrétien's departure, Duceppe became the longest-serving leader of a major party in Canada. With the recent success of the Bloc, and his recently well-received performance as leader, speculation mounted that Duceppe might seek the leadership of theParti Québécois – particularly whenBernard Landry stepped down as party leader on June 4, 2005. On June 13, 2005, Duceppe announced that he would not run for theleadership of the PQ.^[12]

Duceppe's Bloc, along with theStephen Harper's Conservatives andJack Layton's NDP, worked together on November 28, 2005 to pass a motion of no confidence in the minority Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin after findings in theSponsorship Scandal. In the resultant2006 federal election, many Bloc insiders believed that Duceppe's popularity, combined with the unpopularity of the federal Liberal Party in Quebec, would push the Bloc Québécois over the symbolic majority vote mark among Quebec voters. Many Quebec separatists felt that a strong performance by the Bloc in the 2006 federal election would boost the sovereignty movement and perhaps set the stage for a new referendum on secession after the anticipated Quebec provincial election expected in 2007. In actuality, a late surge in Conservative and federalist support kept the Bloc's share of the popular vote below 43% giving the Bloc only 51 seats.^[13] The Conservatives' gains in Quebec, as well as Ontario, gave the party enough seats to form a minority government with Harper as prime minister, replacing the Liberals' Paul Martin. The unimpressive and lackluster results on election night called into question the level of separatist support in Quebec.

In theMarch 26, 2007 Quebec provincial election, the Parti Québécois found itself reduced to third place in theNational Assembly of Quebec, behind both the governingQuebec Liberal Party and the oppositionAction démocratique du Québec. Following this disappointing result, the PQ leader,André Boisclair, announced his resignation on May 8, 2007. Duceppe confirmed on May 11, 2007, that he would seek the PQ leadership^[14] but the next day he withdrew from the race.^[15] After his withdrawal, Duceppe announced that he would support two-time leadership hopefulPauline Marois.^[16]

In the2008 federal election, Duceppe led the Bloc Québécois to 49 seats, up one from its pre-dissolution standing of 48.^[17] However, the Bloc's share of the popular vote fell again, to 38%, its lowest result since 1997. After the election, Liberals and NDPreached a deal form a minority coalition government with support from the Bloc Québécois, which would have toppled the minority Conservative government, however the Governor General agreed to prorogue parliament before the vote could take place. After prorogation, the Liberals underwent a change in leadership and distanced themselves from the coalition agreement and supported the Conservatives' budget. However Duceppe's Bloc andJack Layton's NDP remained committed to voting against the Conservatives.

In 2011, the Bloc cooperated with the Liberals and NDP to find the Conservative government incontempt of Parliament, after all three opposition parties indicated that they would not accept the Conservatives' budget, leading Prime Minister Harper to request the dissolution of parliament. The Bloc demanded $5 billion for the province, including compensation for damages from theJanuary 1998 North American ice storm and $175 million towards a new hockey arena to bring back theQuebec Nordiques, which the Conservatives dismissed outright.^[18][19][20]

In the resultant2011 federal election, the Bloc lost 43 of their 47 seats—including many seats they'd held since their 1993 breakthrough—cutting them down to a rump of four MPs and losingofficial party status. Much of that support bled to the NDP, who ascended from fourth place to second place to become the Official Opposition, largely by winning 59 seats in Quebec which included a sweep of the Bloc's heartlands in Quebec City and eastern Montreal. The NDP, which entered the election withOutremont MPTom Mulcair as their only elected representative in the province, had surged in the last weeks of the campaign at the expense of the Bloc due to NDP leaderJack Layton's charismatic personality and leftist nationalism policies, while Bloc "over the years defend[ed] Quebec's interests, but the sovereigntist agenda is no longer very relevant".^[21] Duceppe lost his own seat to NDP challengerHélène Laverdière by 5,400 votes.

Accepting responsibility for the Bloc's crushing defeat, Duceppe announced his pending resignation as Bloc leader soon after the result was beyond doubt. He remained defiant, however, vowing not to rest "until Quebec becomes a country".^[22]

In January 2012, Duceppe was accused of having used funds designated for his parliamentary office to pay the Bloc Québécois' general manager over a seven-year period. Duceppe denied any wrongdoing when testifying before the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy in February.^[23] In November 2012, the partisan House of Commons Board of Internal Economy found that Duceppe misused funds. However, the board could not take disciplinary action as the money was spent before the by-laws around the issue were changed.^[24]

Duceppe has worked as a political analyst since his departure from parliament. In 2014, he denounced comments made by newly elected Bloc leaderMario Beaulieu in which he seemingly dismissed the Bloc under Duceppe as having followed a gradualist strategy for achieving sovereignty which Beaulieu characterised as defeatist and for invoking the phrase "nous vaincrons" (we will vanquish), which was a slogan employed by the paramilitaryFront de libération du Québec.^[25]

After two years of further decline in the polls and internal divisions, it was announced June 10, 2015 that Duceppe would be returning to lead the Bloc into the campaign while his successor,Mario Beaulieu would relinquish the leadership but remain party president.^[26][27] The party executive agreed on June 9, 2015, to split the positions of president and party leader in order to facilitate Duceppe's return. The changes were ratified by the party's general council^[28] on July 1.^[29][30]

On August 1, 2015, it was reported that Duceppe had decided to contest his former riding ofLaurier-Sainte-Marie in the upcoming federal election and that he would announce this in a press conference shortly after the election was called, which occurred on August 2.^[31] However, while leading his party to a win of 10 seats in theOctober 19, 2015 election, up from two, Duceppe was personally defeated in his riding and announced his resignation as leader several days later.^[32]

Duceppe's sonAlexis Brunelle-Duceppe was elected to parliament in the 2019 federal election.^[33] In 2024, he commented on Trudeau saying Liberals "don't have another choice" for leader before the45th Canadian federal election.^[34]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toGilles Duceppe.

• Gilles Duceppe – Parliament of Canada biography
• How'd they vote?: Gilles Duceppe's voting history and quotes at theWayback Machine (archived March 12, 2007)

• Gilles Duceppe
• 1947 births
• Leaders of the opposition (Canada)
• Bloc Québécois leaders
• Bloc Québécois MPs
• Canadian atheists
• Canadian people of English descent
• Quebec people of Irish descent
• Living people
• Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec
• Politicians from Montreal
• 20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada
• Workers' Communist Party (Canada) politicians
• Former Marxists
• Confédération des syndicats nationaux
• 21st-century members of the House of Commons of Canada

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use Canadian English from January 2023
• All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English
• BLP articles lacking sources from June 2015
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• Pages with French IPA
• Commons category link is on Wikidata