Marie-Paule Charette-Poulin (born June 21, 1945) was a Canadian senator until resigning in April 2015 and was the president of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2006 to 2008.
[1] She was educated at Laurentian University, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in 1966, and the Université de Montréal, obtaining her Master's of Social Science in 1969.
In the earlier part of her career, Charette-Poulin worked as a program producer, researcher and university lecturer.
Prior to her national experience at the CBC, she was founding Director of the Corporation's Northern Ontario French Services, which included launching the Sudbury radio station CBON and establishing over 30 retransmitter antennae in northern Ontario In 1995, following the death of Jean Noël Desmarais, Charette-Poulin was appointed to her Senate seat by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
She was a member of the Implementation Committee for Bill 8 in Ontario and a founding director of La Cité collégiale and the Regroupement des gens d'affaires (RGA).
She was the Canadian president of the Fédération Canada-France, and as Vice-Chair of the Canada-Japan Inter-Parliamentary Group, she was a member of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum.
She defeated former MP Tony Ianno and party activist Bobbi Ethier to win the election.
[8] In June 2015, she was named as one of nine senators whose expenses were referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a criminal investigation.
[9][10] In 2016, all nine Senators were exonerated : The Royal Canadian Mounted Police concluded that no further action was required (source needed).