[2] Prior to entering provincial politics, Rodrigue Biron had been a card-carrying supporter of the Liberal Party of Quebec.
[4] The UN had once dominated Quebec provincial politics, but in the 1973 election, it lost all of the seats that it had held in the previous National Assembly.
The party won one anglophone riding, where UN candidate William Shaw was elected capitalizing on discontent with Bill 22 language legislation passed by the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa.
Biron resigned as Union Nationale leader on March 3, 1980, campaigned in favor of the Yes side in the 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty and joined the PQ on November 11 of that year.
When Preston Manning wanted to form the United Alternative, he recruited Biron to the steering committee.