50 Facts About Joseph Facal

Joseph Facal was born on 12 March 1961 and is a Canadian politician, academic, and journalist in the province of Quebec.

Joseph Facal was a Parti Quebecois member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1994 to 2003 and was a cabinet minister in the governments of Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry.

Joseph Facal's sister, Carole Facal, is a noted singer-songwriter in Quebec.

Joseph Facal has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Universite du Quebec a Montreal, a Master of Arts degree in political science from the Universite de Montreal, and a Ph.

Joseph Facal lectured at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal and Concordia University before starting his career as an elected official.

Shortly before his first election victory in 1994, Joseph Facal said that his support for Quebec sovereignty was based on economic issues.

Joseph Facal first sought election to the Quebec legislature in the 1989 general election for the Montreal division of Dorion.

Joseph Facal finished second against incumbent Liberal Party candidate Violette Trepanier, a minister in Robert Bourassa's government.

Joseph Facal was narrowly elected on his second attempt in the 1994 general election for the Laval division of Fabre.

The Parti Quebecois won a majority government under Jacques Parizeau's leadership, and Joseph Facal entered the legislative as a government backbencher.

Joseph Facal subsequently represented the Bouchard government on missions to Africa, Europe, and Latin America, and in 1997 he served as vice-president of the Parliamentary Conference of the Americas held in Quebec City.

Joseph Facal was promoted to cabinet on 23 September 1998, as minister of Canadian intergovernmental affairs.

Joseph Facal was re-elected with an increased majority in the 1998 general election, as the PQ won a second consecutive majority government under Bouchard's leadership.

Joseph Facal recorded English-language and Spanish-language advertisements for his party during the campaign.

Joseph Facal was kept in the intergovernmental affairs portfolio after the election and was appointed as minister responsible for the Outaouais on 15 December 1998.

In 1998 and 1999, Joseph Facal took part in discussions with representatives of the Canadian federal government and other provinces on a proposed Social Union Framework Agreement for health, education, and social services.

Joseph Facal indicated that Quebec would only accept the agreement if it recognized the province's right to opt out of specific programs with full financial compensation.

The federal government ultimately concluded a deal with all provinces except Quebec in February 1999; Joseph Facal said that he could not sign the accord, as it included provisions for the federal government to oversee unilateral programs such as the millennium scholarships and did not permit Quebec to opt out of future shared-cost programs.

Joseph Facal later said that the social union agreement undermined any possibility that Quebec's distinctiveness could be recognized within the Canadian constitution.

Joseph Facal was a vocal opponent of the Clarity Act introduced by Stephane Dion, the minister of intergovernmental affairs in the federal government of Jean Chretien.

Joseph Facal described the legislation as "anti-democratic" and exchanged public letters with Dion on the subject in late 1999.

Joseph Facal introduced counter-legislation to the Clarity Act in the Quebec legislature in December 1999.

Joseph Facal's legislation stated that a simple majority would be sufficient for a referendum victory on sovereignty, that Quebec's boundaries could not be changed except by Quebec's government and elected representatives, and that no other parliament or government could reduce the powers of the National Assembly.

Joseph Facal responded that it was not his government's wish "to exercise any form of domination over the Crees" and revised the legislation to reflect this and other concerns.

Joseph Facal expressed scepticism toward federal health minister Allan Rock's proposal to overhaul Canada's public health system in January 2000, saying that the effort was hypocritical after years of federal cutbacks.

Lucien Bouchard announced his resignation as Parti Quebecois leader and premier in January 2001, and Joseph Facal was one of the first PQ legislators to support Bernard Landry's successful bid to succeed him.

Joseph Facal was given ministerial responsibility for Canadian francophones and Acadians living outside Quebec, while giving up responsibility for the Outaouais to Sylvain Simard.

In May 2001, Joseph Facal called on the Canadian government to give Quebec a greater role in citizenship ceremonies for new Canadians.

Joseph Facal initially offered qualified support to the suggestion that Quebec should establish its own citizenship, but he later rejected it on the grounds that it was unnecessarily provocative and offered no concrete benefits.

Joseph Facal expressed concern that Quebec immigrants of Arab origin would be unfairly associated with terrorism.

Joseph Facal argued in June 2002 that the PQ should shift away from its social democratic origins.

Joseph Facal was not disciplined and remained a member of cabinet.

Joseph Facal noted that job security guarantees had been put in place to prevent workers from being influenced by partisan politics, adding that workers could still be dismissed for a poor job performance.

In December 2002, Joseph Facal accepted a preliminary treasury board report that recommended a significant reduction in the size of cabinet and the elimination of several government agencies, some of which were described in the report as redundant.

Joseph Facal did not run as a candidate in the 2003 general election.

Joseph Facal said that his decision was not based on ideological differences with Landry's government and added that he would "doubtlessly" return to politics in the future.

The Parti Quebecois was defeated by Jean Charest's Liberals in the election that followed, and Joseph Facal formally resigned from cabinet with rest of the Landry ministry on 29 April 2003.

Joseph Facal later wrote for the Journal de Montreal and returned to teaching sociology and management at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal.

Joseph Facal supported this, saying that the party needed a leadership contest to update its platform.

Joseph Facal eventually decided to support Pauline Marois, who finished second to Andre Boisclair.

Joseph Facal was again considered as possible leadership candidate, but he again chose not to run and was still generally regarded as an ally of Marois, who won the leadership on her third attempt.

Joseph Facal was one of several public notables, including Lucien Bouchard, who endorsed the manifesto Pour un Quebec lucide in October 2005.

In late 2007, Joseph Facal was appointed to a commission established by the Charest government to examine public service fees in Quebec.

Rumours circulated in late 2010 that Joseph Facal would join Francois Legault to launch a new right-of-centre political movement seeking to bypass Quebec's traditional dichotomy of federalism and sovereigntism.

Joseph Facal ultimately decided not to do so, although he acknowledged in a November 2010 blog posting that he was no longer a member of any political party.

Joseph Facal was a strategist for the party in the 2006 federal election.

Joseph Facal later criticized the BQ's decision to offer parliamentary support to a proposed coalition government of the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party in late 2008, on the grounds that the coalition would be detrimental to sovereigntist interests.

Joseph Facal co-authored an article in 2005 criticizing Jean Charest's proposal to introduce a form of proportional representation to Quebec's electoral system.

Joseph Facal has criticized multiculturalist aspects of the Charest government's course in ethics and religious culture, which is taught to all students at the elementary and high school level.

Joseph Facal's book, Quelque chose comme un grand peuple, was a best-seller in Quebec in 2010.