Gérard Asselin (born April 19, 1950 in

Sainte-Flavie, Quebec Sainte-Flavie () is a parish municipality in the La Mitis Regional County Municipality of Quebec, Canada, located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, about northwest of Mont-Joli. It is named after Flavia, a martyred saint. Sainte ...

- February 9, 2013) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

politician who was a

Bloc Québécois The Bloc Québécois (, , BQ) is a centre-left politics, centre-left and list of federal political parties in Canada, federal political party in Canada devoted to Quebec nationalism, Quebecois nationalism, social democracy, and the promotion o ...

member of the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada () is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Monarchy of Canada#Parliament (King-in-Parliament), Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Ca ...

, representing the riding of Manicouagan from 2004 to 2011 and

Charlevoix Charlevoix ( , ) is a cultural and natural region in Quebec, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River as well as in the Laurentian Mountains area of the Canadian Shield. This dramatic landscape includes rolling terrain, fjords, headlands ...

from 1993 to 2004.

Career

Asselin was a foreman, and was previously a city councillor in

Baie-Comeau Baie-Comeau () is a city in the Côte-Nord region of the province of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, and is the seat of Manicouagan Regional County Municipality. It is near the mouth of the Manicouagan Ri ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

from 1979 to 1993. In his first run for federal office, in 1993, Asselin won the riding of former

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Brian Mulroney Martin Brian Mulroney (March 20, 1939 – February 29, 2024) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and politician who served as the 18th prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993. Born in the eastern Quebec city of Baie-Comeau, Mulroney studi ...

in a landslide, finishing 16,500 votes ahead of his closest opponent. The

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

candidate finished a distant third, and nearly lost his deposit. Asselin was re-elected almost as easily in every election until losing to

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National Dev ...

challenger

Jonathan Genest-Jourdain Jonathan Genest-Jourdain (born July 16, 1979) is a Canadian politician from Quebec. Genest-Jourdain served as the New Democratic Party Member of Parliament for Manicouagan and as a member of the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet in the 41st C ...

in 2011. Asselin was one of the party's few more socially conservative members. In 2005, Asselin joined six other Bloc Québécois members opposing Bill C-38, which extended marriage rights to same-sex couples in Canada. At the end of the 37th Canadian Parliament, Asselin was the Bloc's Forestry critic. He also served as Natural Resources Critic.

Electoral record (partial)

References

External links

How'd They Vote?: Gérard Asselin's voting history and quotes
* 1950 births 2013 deaths Bloc Québécois MPs Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec People from Baie-Comeau Politicians from Bas-Saint-Laurent 20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada 21st-century members of the House of Commons of Canada {{BlocQuébécois-MP-stub