Bernard Drainville

A Coalition Avenir Québec member, which reference works place centre-right to right-wing, he has sat for Lévis since 2022 and became Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy in April 2026. He is named in the market on the premiership after the 2026 Quebec general election, in which he sought re-election in Lévis for the CAQ.

Career

Drainville was born on 6 June 1963 in La Visitation-de-l'Île-Dupas, Quebec, and studied political science at the University of Ottawa and international relations at the London School of Economics. From 1989 to 2007 he worked as a journalist and broadcaster at Radio-Canada, including as a Latin America and parliamentary correspondent. He was a Parti Québécois member of the National Assembly for Marie-Victorin from 2007 to 2016 and minister responsible for democratic institutions under Pauline Marois from 2012 to 2014. Elected for the CAQ in Lévis in 2022, he was Education Minister until 2025. In 2026 he finished second in the CAQ leadership race to Christine Fréchette, who then appointed him to his current ministry.

Positions

Wikipedia associates Drainville with the 2013 Quebec Charter of Values proposal, which would have restricted religious symbols for public employees. Wikipedia describes the CAQ, his party, as a Quebec nationalist, autonomist, secularist and conservative party that media and scholars call centre-right.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · Wikipedia · CTV News

Photo: TVA Nouvelles, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)