In This Assembly

When Mario Dumont surprised Quebec by leading the Action démocratique du Québec to forty-one seats and forming the official opposition in Quebec’s Assemblée nationale in March 2007, he already had an impressive track record. During the Charlottetown referendum of 1992, for example, he had challenged Robert Bourassa’s constitutional position, prompting the premier to expel him from the Quebec Liberal Party. Dumont and a breakaway group of young Liberals went on to found the new party in 1994. The following year, he stood with the Parti Québécois premier Jacques Parizeau and the Bloc Québécois leader Lucien Bouchard in the 1995 sovereignty referendum, becoming a dynamic force in Quebec politics.

Éric Montigny, one of the co-authors of À la conquête du pouvoir (In pursuit of power), was an adviser to Dumont and present for many of the discussions and decisions at the heart of the ADQ. His co-author, Pascal Mailhot, worked for Lucien Bouchard; for his successor...