77 Facts About Maxime Bernier

Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Bernier left the caucus in 2018 to form the PPC.

Maxime Bernier was the member of Parliament for Beauce from 2006 to 2019 and served as a Cabinet minister in the Harper government.

Maxime Bernier was first elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative in the 2006 election in the same riding his father, Gilles Bernier, had represented from 1984 to 1997.

Maxime Bernier held a number of portfolios in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Cabinet.

Maxime Bernier was industry minister from 2006 to 2007 before being promoted to foreign affairs minister until he stepped down in 2008 after failing to secure confidential documents.

Maxime Bernier continued to sit as a back-bench MP until 2011, when he was appointed as Minister of State for small business and tourism.

Maxime Bernier ran for the Conservative Party leadership in the 2017 leadership election.

Maxime Bernier's campaign garnered significant media attention mainly due to its libertarian platform which promised to end corporate welfare, eliminate the capital gains tax, and abolish supply management in the Canadian dairy industry.

Fifteen months later, in August 2018, Maxime Bernier resigned from the Conservative Party to create his own party, the People's Party of Canada, citing disagreements with Scheer's leadership.

Maxime Bernier lost his parliamentary seat in the 2019 election to Conservative Richard Lehoux, ending parliamentary representation of the PPC.

Maxime Bernier was born in Saint-Georges, Quebec, the son of Doris and Gilles Maxime Bernier, a well known radio host, who represented the riding of Beauce from 1984 to 1997, first as a Progressive Conservative and then as an independent.

Maxime Bernier has stated that his views were shaped from his upbringing in Beauce to his life experiences.

Maxime Bernier is the second oldest child and has two sisters, Brigitte and Caroline, and a brother, Gilles Jr.

Maxime Bernier obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, completed his law degree at the University of Ottawa and was called to the Quebec Bar in 1990, of which he is still a member.

Maxime Bernier served as Executive Vice-President of the Montreal Economic Institute, a Quebec free-market think tank, where he authored a book on tax reform.

In 2005, Maxime Bernier became the Conservative candidate for Beauce in the 2006 federal election.

Maxime Bernier won 67 per cent of the vote, the largest majority for a Conservative politician outside Alberta.

Some political pundits believed Maxime Bernier's ideas led to the unexpected Conservative breakthrough in Quebec during the election.

Maxime Bernier was a high-profile new MP from Quebec; on February 6,2006, he was appointed Minister of Industry and minister responsible for Statistics Canada.

In May 2008, it was revealed that, one month earlier, Maxime Bernier inadvertently left a confidential briefing book at the home of his girlfriend, Julie Couillard.

Maxime Bernier was re-elected with 62 per cent of votes, and was made chair for the National Defense Select Committee.

In 2009, Maxime Bernier started a blog and spent the next four years travelling across Canada to discuss political issues.

Maxime Bernier's speeches were criticized by Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Raymond Blanchard and Tom Mulcair, but praised by Andrew Coyne, Warren Kinsella, and Andre Pratte.

Maxime Bernier later revealed that his colleagues were furious because they wanted to use the investment to "Buy votes".

On May 18,2011, Maxime Bernier was appointed as Minister of State, a junior ministerial post.

Maxime Bernier did not enjoy being bound by the principle of cabinet solidarity, and disliked being named to a minor department, but accepted the role out of deference to his colleagues and to regain credibility via a return to the cabinet.

Maxime Bernier later said he accepted the position because he felt he did not accomplish enough in his career and expressed a desire to end the budget deficit.

Maxime Bernier's responsibilities were expanded with his appointment on July 15,2013 as Minister of State.

On November 20,2015, Maxime Bernier was appointed by interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose as Critic for Economic Development and Innovation.

Maxime Bernier resigned on April 7,2016 to run in the Conservative Party's leadership election.

In March 2016 Maxime Bernier introduced a motion to require Bombardier executives to explain, to the Industry Committee, the reasoning for the federal government to bail them out.

Maxime Bernier argued Bombardier should restructure itself rather than seek public funds.

At a conservative conference in March 2016, Maxime Bernier said that China has "less government and more freedom" than Canada; a video of the speech was later circulated by the Broadbent Institute's Press Progress.

Maxime Bernier said that he was referring to economic freedom, not political freedom, and said that his remarks should not be construed to suggest that he supported Chinese dictatorship.

In May 2016, Maxime Bernier broke from his Conservative colleagues on supply management, the Canadian agricultural system in which a form of insurance is granted to farmers.

Maxime Bernier said that there was no way to reconcile the Canadian system with his "free-market principles".

Maxime Bernier campaigned on smaller government, lower taxes, paying down the national debt, increasing investments, increase pipeline developments, and opening up markets.

Maxime Bernier proposed balancing the budget within two years, reduce the number of tax brackets from five to three, and increase basic exemption from $11,474 to $15,000 being paid by "boutique" tax credits.

Maxime Bernier campaigned on phasing control of the Canada Health Transfer to the provinces for health care by replacing it with a health transfer point system.

Maxime Bernier opposed a "Canadian values" test on the basis that it is logistically ineffective to fight terrorism.

Maxime Bernier proposed abolishing the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, privatizing Canada Post Corporation, phasing out supply management on dairy and poultry, and expanding free trade.

Maxime Bernier wanted to "break" Quebec's maple syrup cartel and wanted to allow foreign ownership for the airline industry.

Maxime Bernier wants to "streamline the process for hiring specialized workers abroad", put more emphasis on economic immigration, "slightly reduce" family reunification class immigration, put more emphasis on privately sponsored refugees and fewer government sponsored, and reform temporary foreign worker programs.

Maxime Bernier campaigned on stricter foreign aid standards and phase out development aid.

Nathan Giede of the Prince George Citizen wrote that Maxime Bernier was "the living reincarnation of all Laurier's good ideas and Dief the Chief's pan-Canadian optimism".

Maxime Bernier achieved unexpectedly high levels of support, finishing a close second in the 13th and final round of voting on May 27,2017, taking 49.05 per cent of the vote to Andrew Scheer's 50.95 per cent.

Maxime Bernier intended to publish a book, Doing Politics Differently: My Vision for Canada.

However, in deference to his Conservative colleagues who saw the chapter as an attack on Scheer, Maxime Bernier agreed to postpone publication of the book indefinitely for the sake of party unity, while saying that the book was not about his leadership campaign, but about important ideas.

Maxime Bernier later told the Toronto Star in an email that he defended his comments and that the book would someday be published.

Maxime Bernier denied that he broke the pledge, saying that the published excerpts had previously been publicly released on his publisher's website.

Maxime Bernier later tweeted that naming a park in Winnipeg after Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was an example of "extreme multiculturalism".

However, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer stated Maxime Bernier "speaks for himself" amid calls for Maxime Bernier to be expelled from the party's caucus.

Scheer later claimed that he did not use identity politics to gain support; which Maxime Bernier issued a series of tweets counter-arguing the point.

Maxime Bernier held a press conference at which he declared that the Conservative Party was "too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed", and was afraid to address important issues or articulate a coherent philosophy.

Harper suggested that Maxime Bernier was a sore loser, while Mulroney said that Maxime Bernier's creation of a new party would split the vote and make it more likely that Trudeau's Liberals would win the 2019 election.

Conversely, Maxime Bernier's decision was praised as courageous by columnist Christie Blatchford.

On September 14,2018, Maxime Bernier announced the creation of the People's Party of Canada, saying the party would advocate for "smart populism", which he defined as policies based on principles of freedom, responsibility, fairness, and respect.

Maxime Bernier positioned the People's Party to the right of the Conservative Party; the party has been variously described as conservative, libertarian, right-wing populist, classical liberal, far-right, and alt-right.

Maxime Bernier's focus on issues like cutting immigration marked a change in his public profile that contrasted with his earlier focus on free-market economic libertarian stances such as telecom monopolies and deregulation.

Maxime Bernier proposed reductions in federal income tax, called for a reduction of the federal role in healthcare and the replacement of the Canada Health Transfer, and proposed the replacement of the Indian Act.

Maxime Bernier was the only leader of a party represented in the House of Commons to reject the scientific consensus on climate change.

Maxime Bernier said he would do "nothing" to deal with climate change, and that Canada should withdraw from the Paris Agreement on carbon emissions.

On September 2,2019, Maxime Bernier posted a series of tweets in which he called Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg "mentally unstable".

Maxime Bernier lost over 20 points compared to 2015, finishing with 28.3 per cent to Lehoux's 38.6 per cent, with the Bloc Quebecois and Liberals finishing a distant third and fourth, respectively.

Nationally, Maxime Bernier was the only PPC candidate to come within sight of being elected; no other candidate won more than six per cent of the vote, and the party as a whole won only 1.6 per cent of the popular vote.

Maxime Bernier was ordered in February 2022 to pay $132,000 in legal costs to Kinsella.

Maxime Bernier announced his intention to run in a by-election when seats became vacant from the resignations of Bill Morneau and Michael Levitt over the summer of 2020.

Maxime Bernier confirmed his candidacy for Levitt's former Toronto riding of York Centre shortly after the date of the October 26,2020 by-election was announced.

Maxime Bernier was strongly critical of public health measures undertaken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, having travelled to anti-lockdown protests throughout the country in 2021.

Maxime Bernier paid $1000 bail, cancelled the remainder of his tour in Manitoba, and returned to Montreal the next day.

Maxime Bernier led the PPC in the 2021 election and campaigned against vaccine mandates, vaccine passports and lockdowns.

Maxime Bernier ran in his old riding of Beauce for the election and again lost to Richard Lehoux.

Maxime Bernier accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of 'colluding' with US President Joe Biden on vaccine mandates.

Maxime Bernier announced on May 12,2023 that he would run for MP in a by-election in Portage-Lisgar in Manitoba following the resignation of Candice Bergen.

Immediately following his defeat in the by-election, Maxime Bernier announced that he intended to run in Portage-Lisgar again at the next general election, before later announcing in 2025 that he would instead be a candidate in his old riding of Beauce.

In September 2013, Maxime Bernier trained for and ran an ultramarathon across his riding to raise funds for a local food bank.

In 2014, Maxime Bernier participated in the Rodeo de Cochons after being challenged by a local mayor.