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Former Bloc Québécois leader Michel Gauthier dies at 70

Presse Canadienne
3 hours ago  •  1 minute read
Ottawa - Jun 10, 1996 - att Dan Smythe - as requested Michel Gauthier. ORG XMIT: POS2018051318170481
Michel Gauthier served as the Bloc MP for the Roberval riding from 1997 to 2004, and then as the MP for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean until 2007. He also acted as parliamentary leader of the Bloc. Wayne Hiebert / Ottawa Citizen

Former Bloc Québécois leader Michel Gauthier has died.

Gauthier, 70, was suffering from lung cancer

He served as the Bloc MP for the Roberval riding from 1997 to 2004, and then as the MP for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean until 2007. He also acted as parliamentary leader of the Bloc.

Gilles Duceppe, who spent 15 years as the Bloc’s leader, described his former colleague as “good pedagogue.”

“He was a go-getter, it’s sad to lose him so soon. I lived beautiful moments by his side, beyond the differences that we might have had. Like me, he wanted Quebec to move forward,” Duceppe told Presse Canadienne in an interview.

Gauthier renounced sovereignty in 2018, saying the Bloc had no future, and briefly joined the Conservative Party. At the time, he said he voted for Brian Mulroney in the 1984 and 1988 federal elections. He did not run in the 2019 federal election.