[1] Lisée formally entered Parti Québécois leadership election in May 2016, saying he would not campaign for sovereignty in his first mandate as premier.

During that decade, he began an expansive investigation into 30 years of American political, diplomatic, financial and media attention toward Quebec and its independence movement, resulting in the book In the Eye of the Eagle, published in 1990.

In 1994, he became a "special advisor" to nationalist Premier Jacques Parizeau and an important strategist for the 1995 Quebec referendum campaign.

Lisée resigned from this post in late 1999 because of disagreements over the sovereignty strategy of the provincial PQ government.

Lisée was guest scholar from 2001 to 2003 at the International Research and Study Centre (CERI) in Paris and at the Political Science Department of the University of Montreal.

A fellow PQ member Maka Kotto, an immigrant from Cameroon, criticized Lisée's comments.