He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1986 to 1990, representing the rural riding of Springfield.
[2] The son of Marcel Roch, he worked as a hotel manager before entering political life.
Unlike most Franco-Manitoba politicians, Roch was an evangelical Christian rather than a Roman Catholic.
He was re-elected by a much greater margin in the 1988 election, in which the Progressive Conservatives formed a minority government under Gary Filmon.
On September 8, 1988, he crossed the floor to rejoin the Liberal Party, which was the official opposition in the legislature at the time.