1963: Born in La Visitation-de-l’Île-Dupas, a rural municipality which now has 600 inhabitants. The parents of the Drainville family were very involved in the agricultural world.
Around 1979-1980: Bernard Drainville is the eldest of a family of six children. “It was my dream” to go into politics, he says. Public service, “it runs in the family”.
1985: Bernard Drainville becomes the first French-speaking president of the Ontario Federation of Students, which represents 200,000 students. “The challenge is daunting,” said the young Drainville to the Right. He had previously served as president of the Federation of Students of the University of Ottawa (photo).
1989: Bernard Drainville joins the Windsor station of Radio-Canada. He will then work in Montreal (photo), Ottawa, Mexico City and Quebec City for the public broadcaster. “He’s an excellent journalist, a serious guy,” said former news anchor Bernard Derome. OU: In 1997, he won the Judith-Jasmin prize for his investigation into the secret financing of Mayor Pierre Bourque’s party.
2001: Based in Mexico City, Bernard Drainville is Latin America correspondent for Radio-Canada. He notably interviews the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez. He was also briefly detained by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).
February 8, 2007: Bernard Drainville announces that he is leaving journalism to become a candidate for the Parti Québécois. “I dreamed much more of doing politics than of doing journalism,” he said then.
September 10, 2013: Minister Drainville presents his charter of Quebec values. The public hearings, a “strategic error” according to its former director of communications, Manuel Dionne, turned into “ freak show ” according to him. Nearly 80 groups took part.
September 4, 2014: Potential candidate for the leadership of the Parti Québécois, Bernard Drainville brushes aside the idea of holding a referendum in a first term.
June 14, 2016: Bernard Drainville confirms that he is leaving politics. When former chef Pierre Karl Péladeau left, “it was kind of my starting signal,” he says. “For me, politics is a fight. […] You can’t practice that at 50% or 70%. »
June 7, 2022: Bernard Drainville is making a political comeback, this time to the Coalition avenir Québec. “The old federalist-independence debate is outdated,” he says. He was appointed Minister of Education in October and presented a reform just over six months later.