Louis Plamondon MP (born July 31, 1943) is a Canadian politician who served as the interim speaker of the House of Commons from September 27 to October 3, 2023.
Plamondon has won his seat in twelve consecutive federal elections, winning twice as a Progressive Conservative before becoming a founding member of the Bloc Québécois in 1990, after which he has been re-elected ten more times.
[10] In 1986, he criticized justice minister John Crosbie for appointing an anglophone to replace the sole francophone judge on the Ontario Court of Appeal.
[20] He also criticized D'Iberville Fortier, Canada's official languages commissioner, for suggesting that Quebec was acting in an unjust manner toward its anglophone minority.
[22] During this period, Plamondon speculated that sovereignty-association between Quebec and Canada would be "logical and reasonable" if the accord failed and added that he might become a "Quebec-only MP" in that event.
[23] When the accord was rejected in June 1990, Plamondon resigned from the Progressive Conservative caucus and informed the House of Commons that he could no longer support a united Canada.
Shortly after joining the BQ, Plamondon asked the federal government to apologize to the province of Quebec and provide financial compensation for those who were wrongly arrested under the War Measures Act in the 1970 FLQ Crisis.
[29] He claimed innocence, saying that the charge was the result of a "bad joke between friends which lasted 45 seconds," but nonetheless resigned as his party's house leader pending resolution of the matter.
[31] Plamondon was re-elected without difficulty in the 1993 federal election, as the Bloc won fifty-four out of seventy-five seats in Quebec to become the official opposition in the House of Commons.
[34] He opposed finance minister Paul Martin's austerity budget in the same year, arguing that it placed an unfair financial burden on the provinces to fight the federal deficit.
[38] Plamondon supported the Chrétien government's choice of Dyane Adam to become Canada's official language commissioner in 1998, saying that she would be "tougher" than her predecessor Victor Goldbloom (whom he nonetheless acknowledged had done good work on education matters).
[40] Plamondon strongly opposed the Clarity Act legislation introduced by intergovernmental affairs minister Stéphane Dion in 1999, arguing that it would create confusion in any future referendum on Quebec sovereignty.
[42] As its title implies, the work was highly critical of its subject: Plamondon accused Martin of damaging Quebec's interests during his time in the Chrétien cabinet.
Martin's supporters dismissed the work as a negative campaign ploy lacking any progressive vision,[44] and Liberal MP Don Boudria asked the speaker of the House of Commons to investigate whether Plamondon had broken parliamentary rules by using publicly funded research staff to help compile the book.
Widely respected as an electoral strategist, Plamondon later prepared an internal brief examining why the Bloc lost seats in the Quebec City area to the Conservatives.
[50] André Boisclair resigned as Parti Québécois leader after a poor showing in the 2007 provincial election, and rumours again circulated that Duceppe would run to succeed him.
[52] Duceppe eventually entered the leadership contest, but withdrew after only one day due to poor polling and a growing sense that the sovereigntist movement would be divided if he won.
[53] When Brian Mulroney released his memoirs in September 2007, he alleged that Lucien Bouchard had conspired with Jacques Parizeau to create the Bloc Québécois while still a federal cabinet minister.
Plamondon presided over the Commons when it re-elected Peter Milliken as its speaker in October 2008 and acknowledged the irony that an MP from a sovereigntist party would hold this position.
[57] He remains Dean of the House and presided over the Commons when it chose Andrew Scheer to be Milliken's successor as speaker on June 2, 2011;[58] the Harper-led Conservatives had won a majority government at the election.