MP Francis Drouin will not run in the next federal election

Photo: Sean Kilpatrick The Canadian Press Francis Drouin, a Liberal MP elected since 2015, has been in the spotlight in recent months for calling two witnesses campaigning for the protection of French “full of shit.”

The Canadian Press in Ottawa

Published at 3:03 p.m.

• Canada

Franco-Ontarian MP Francis Drouin will not seek a new mandate in the next general election. He plans to complete his term.

His office confirmed to The Canadian Press this information, first reported by Radio-Canada.

Mr. Drouin, a Liberal who has represented the riding of Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, near Ottawa, since 2015, has been in the spotlight in recent months for calling two witnesses advocating for the protection of French “full of shit.”

During the heated exchange at the official languages ​​committee, the two witnesses explained, based on Statistics Canada data, that when a francophone or allophone attends an English university or CEGEP, it significantly increases the likelihood of leading their life in English.

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MP Drouin made the controversial remarks after asking them if they sincerely believe “that the big problem with anglicization in Quebec is McGill and Dawson College.”

While Ontario’s Francophones supported Mr. Drouin by calling him an “ally,” things were different in Quebec. Premier François Legault denounced a “total lack of judgment” and his Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, judged that Justin Trudeau’s entire Liberal government had “some soul-searching” to do by refusing to “condemn” these “absolutely unworthy” remarks.

Despite the apologies, the Bloc Québécois then tried to remove him from his position as president of the Canadian section of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, and by extension from the same functions he held internationally. Hordes of elected Liberals, many of them English-speaking, foiled the attempt by joining the group to come to its rescue.

A year earlier, Mr. Drouin had come to the defence of the bill on the modernization of official languages ​​by accusing some of his own colleagues from the “Montreal Island” of making “a show shameful smokescreen.”

During the last election, in 2021, Mr. Drouin had garnered 46.1% of the support. The Conservative Party of Canada candidate had obtained 33.3% and the New Democratic Party candidate 10.7%.