(b. Sherbrooke, Quebec, 24 June 1958) Canadian; politician After graduation Charest practised law, specializing in Legal Aid and Criminal Law. Elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1984 as a Progressive Conservative, he was successively Assistant Deputy Speaker of House of Commons 1984; Minister of State (Youth) 1986 – 90; Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) 1988 – 90; Deputy Government Leader in the House of Commons 1989 – 90; Minister of the Environment 1991 – 3; Deputy Prime Minister; Minister of Industry, Science, and Technology, and of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

The October 1993 general election produced an unmitigated disaster for the Conservatives. All twenty-five members of Kim Campbell's Cabinet, except for Charest, lost their seats. Only two Conservatives (one in New Brunswick and Charest in Quebec) were elected. Never before in Canadian history had a governing party suffered such an electoral defeat. In such an unpropitious moment on 13 December 1993, Jean Charest succeeded Campbell as leader charged with the formidable task of rebuilding the Conservatives as a national party.

(zhäN shä'rĕ) , 1958–, Canadian politician. A lawyer and member of the Progressive Conservative party, he was been a member of parliament from Quebec since 1984. From 1986 to 1993 Charest served in cabinet positions—as minister of state for youth (1986–90) and fitness and amateur sport (1988–90), minister of the environment (1991–93), and deputy prime minister (1993). After the Progressive Conservatives suffered a crushing defeat in the 1993 parliamentary elections, Charest replaced Kim Campbell as head of the badly faltering national party and pledged to rejuvenate it. In the debate that preceded the Oct., 1995, referendum on Quebec independence from Canada, Charest proved himself a highly persuasive advocate of Canadian federalism and an important counterinfluence to Lucien Bouchard's impassioned separatist stance. Charest led the his party to a modest recovery in the 1997 national elections, but in 1998 he resigned as Progressive Conservative leader to assume leadership of the Quebec Liberal party. He led the Liberals to a majority in the National Assembly in 2003 and became Quebec's premier; he remained in the post after the Liberals retained a plurality in 2007 and formed a minority government.