Maxime Bernier, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada
Maxime Bernier (born January 18, 1963) is a Canadian politician who is the founder and leader of the People's Party of Canada (PPC). Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Bernier left the caucus in 2018 to form the PPC. He was the member of Parliament (MP) for Beauce from 2006 to 2019 and served as a Cabinet minister in the Harper government.
Prior to entering politics, Bernier worked in law, finance and banking. He 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. Bernier held a number of portfolios in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Cabinet. He 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. He continued to sit as a back-bench MP until 2011, when he was appointed as Minister of State for small business and tourism. Following the 2015 election, while the Conservatives were no longer in power, Bernier was re-elected as an MP.
Bernier ran for the Conservative Party leadership in the 2017 leadership election. After leading eventual winner Andrew Scheer through 12 rounds of voting, he came second with over 49 per cent in the 13th round. Fifteen months later, in August 2018, Bernier resigned from the Conservative Party to create his own party, the right-wing populist People's Party, citing disagreements with Scheer's leadership. He lost his parliamentary seat in the 2019 election to Conservative Richard Lehoux, ending parliamentary representation of the PPC. Bernier later ran in the by-election for York Centre in October 2020, but lost to Ya'ara Saks with 3.56 per cent of the vote. He lost to Lehoux in Beauce a second time in the 2021 election.
Bernier has taken economic libertarian positions on issues such as opposing supply management in the Canadian dairy industry and government subsidies for arenas. He is against mass immigration to Canada, supports repealing the Multiculturalism Act, and rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, he opposed mandatory vaccinations, public health measures, and attended many anti-lockdown protests; he was arrested for violating public health orders at a gathering in Manitoba.