Bloc Québécois

The Bloc Québécois is a federal political party in Canada devoted to separating Quebec from the rest of the country. The Bloc Québécois was started in 1990 as a splinter of the Progressive Conservative Party then in power under Brian Mulroney. In the 1993 election the Bloc became the official opposition in Canada's parliament under the leadership of Lucien Bouchard but in the 1995 Quebec referendum voters narrowly (50.5%) chose to remain in Canada.

Bouchard then switched to provincial politics, winning the 1998 Quebec election at the helm of the separatist Parti Québécois. The Bloc's leadership was briefly held by the Michel Gauthier and was then passed to Gilles Duceppe in 1997. Duceppe is still leader of the Bloc today. In the 1997 elction the Bloc did not fare well and the party lost official opposition status to the Reform Party. In the 2000 election the Bloc party fared even worse, losing a number of seats in Quebec to the Liberals.

References: CBC Backgrounder