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Mario Dumont  Like his rival Jean Charest, Mario Dumont was in his mid-20s when he won his first election. Now, at the ripe old age of 32, Dumont is poised to be the leader to watch in the campaign of 2003.Within the past year, a surge in popularity made his right-wing Action Démocratique du Québec party look like a real contender to form the next government. In the spring of 2002, a byelection win finally added an ADQ member to the National Assembly to join Dumont. In June 2002, more byelections, more victories and another three members join the ADQ caucus. His party may very well add to the five seats it holds in the National Assembly. But the real danger for the Liberals lies in the ability of ADQ candidates to draw off just enough centre-right support to split the opposition vote -- and allow PQ victories -- in ridings around the province. The leader of this upstart political movement was born May 19, 1970 in Cacouna, near Rivière-du-Loup, Que. By age 16, he had become a member of the Quebec Liberal Party's youth commission. He was elected the chair of the commission before his 21st birthday. In 1992, Dumont took an active role in fighting the Charlottetown Accord. While still attending Concordia University, where he studied economics, Dumont served as co-chair of a group called the Network of Liberals Voting NO. Less than a year after his university graduation, Dumont helped found the Action Démocratique du Québec in January 1994. He was elected party president that March, and became leader the following month. Dumont led the ADQ into its first election on Sept. 12, 1994, and won the party's sole seat in the riding of Rivière-du-Loup. He was 24. He quickly threw in his lot with the sovereignists, signing a 1995 manifesto with Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard that stated their shared goal of an independent Quebec. Dumont subsequently campaigned for sovereignty in the referendum of 1995.  Following Dumont's re-election in 1998, the ADQ's still-solitary member in the National Assembly began to stake out a right-wing platform. Like the Reform Party before it, Dumont's ADQ looked outside of the mainstream for support, and found a receptive audience in a political field where neither of its competitors was prepared to run largely on conservative fiscal policies.Going into this campaign, Dumont has set the ADQ apart from the Liberals and PQ by promising tax cuts – $1 billion worth in one year – and debt reduction. The party is still committed to the idea of sovereignty, but notes in its campaign literature that, "in the short and medium term, strengthening Quebec's political power calls for taking a different route: that of uniting Quebecers in the pursuit of prosperity." But while he holds on to some of the party's founding principles, Dumont has demonstrated that he can shed ideas -- like a single tax rate for everyone, regardless of income -- if the criticism reaches distracting levels. If that pragmatic move is an indication of things to come in this campaign, Dumont could be the opponent who gives Jean Charest the race of his political career. |
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