Robert Bourassa[1][2] GOQ (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ buʁasa]; July 14, 1933 – October 2, 1996) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd premier of Quebec from 1970 to 1976 and from 1985 to 1994.

Bourassa's tenure was marked by major events affecting Quebec, including the October Crisis and the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords.

[3] Robert Bourassa graduated from the Université de Montréal law school in 1956 and was admitted to the Barreau du Québec the following year.

One of Bourassa's first crises as premier was the October Crisis of 1970, in which his deputy, Pierre Laporte, was kidnapped and later murdered by members of the Front de libération du Quebec.

Bourassa requested that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoke the War Measures Act, which allowed for search and arrest of anyone associated with, or thought to be associated with the FLQ.

The Canadian Armed Forces were withdrawn on 4 January 1971, and Paul Rose and some of his accomplices were found guilty of murder later that year.

As a result, Quebec was no longer institutionally bilingual (French and English), though the rights of anglophones were still protected under the British North America Acts.

The Bourassa government also played a major role in rescuing the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal from huge cost overruns and construction delays.

In response to the violence at the LG-2 site, which confirmed long-standing rumors about thuggish practices on the part of construction unions, Bourassa appointed a commission consisting of a well respected judge Robert Cliche, a prominent Montreal labour lawyer Brian Mulroney and Guy Chevrette, the vice-president of the Centrale de l'enseignement du Québec, whose legal counsel was another prominent lawyer Lucien Bouchard to investigate corruption in the construction industry in Quebec.

For some four years, the Bourassa government worked hand in glove with gangster union leadership in the province's construction industry.

[13] Bourassa lost the 1976 provincial election to René Lévesque, leader of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, in a massive landslide brought on by the language controversy and the corruption scandals, among other things.

In 1980, Bourassa campaigned in favour of the "no" side (which was eventually successful) of the 1980 Quebec referendum on a sovereignty-association agreement with the federal government.

During the Oka Crisis in 1990, Bourassa invoked the National Defence Act for the second time, requisitioning the Canadian Armed Forces to help police.

The Meech Lake Accord failed in June 1990 when two provinces, Manitoba and Newfoundland, refused to ratify the agreement their premiers had signed.

[24] In addition to protests and active opposition by a committee of Montreal residents and businesses opposed to the name change, an online petition garnered more than 18,000 virtual signatures against this renaming.