Former Conservative member of Parliament Roch La Salle died Sunday night. He was 78.
La Salle was first elected as a Conservative MP in the Quebec riding of Joliette in 1968, and was re-elected six times. He was also one of only a few Quebec Conservative MPs elected the year Pierre Trudeau led the Liberals to victory.
Roch La Salle, a former Tory MP from the Quebec riding of Joliette, speaks to PC delegates in Quebec City on Nov. 5, 1977. La Salle died Sunday night, at 78.
(Chuck Stoody/Canadian Press archive)
La Salle quit the party in 1971, after disagreements with party leaders over the role of Quebec in Confederation. La Salle was re-elected in 1972 as an Independent and returned to the Tory caucus in 1974.
In 1979, La Salle was minister of supply and services under then-prime minister Joe Clark's government and later served as minister of public works in the Mulroney government in the 1980s.
Mulroney called La Salle a politician who remained close to the people of his riding.
Corrections and Clarifications
- Roch La Salle did not quit the party in 1971 because former Tory leader Robert Stanfield opposed the idea of "two nations" in Canada, as originally reported. In fact, Stanfield endorsed the concept. Aug. 21, 2007|8:00 p.m. ET
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