He was a Parti Québécois member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1976 to 1985 and was a cabinet minister in the governments of René Lévesque and Pierre-Marc Johnson.
He received a master's degree in criminology in 1966 and earned a Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal in 1974 for a thesis submission entitled Police et politique au Québec.
Tardif also wrote several articles on police and prison issues and was a consultant for various government departments and commissions before launching his own career in politics.
In 1978, Tardif and André Ouellet, the urban affairs minister in Pierre Trudeau's federal cabinet, engaged in a public dispute as to which level of government was responsible for delays in proceeding with planned housing construction.
[2] The journalist William Johnson argued in a The Globe and Mail editorial that the Quebec Housing Corporation was at fault, notwithstanding Tardif's statements to the contrary.
[6] Notwithstanding his criticism of Tardif in other respects, William Johnson also credited him with "[taking] the politics out of municipal financing by establishing formula grants.
[8] In December 1980, Tardif was forced to defend his hiring of Luc Cyr, two years earlier, to oversee a program of repairs for low-rent housing.
Cyr, an associate of PQ organizers, later put his son and brother-in-law on the payroll; the president of the housing corporation overturned this arrangement once he discovered it.
[11] During the 1981 provincial election, Tardif joined Premier Lévesque to promise a new housing loan program that would provide financial benefits to homeowners with one or more young children.
Tardif was initially seen as close to the latter group; in early November 1984, he joined twelve other cabinet ministers in signing a manifesto that called for the party to re-affirm its commitment to Quebec independence.
[21] Tardif also announced in August 1985 that Quebec was ending its freeway tolls, after twenty-one years of paying off the original cost of Montreal's four-lane highways.
[1] Graham Fraser has written Tardif was known for his "ferocious work habits" during his time in government, sometimes calling civil servants during the night to discuss office matters.