Jean-François Simard

Jean-François Simard (born December 10, 1966) is a teacher, Quebec provincial politician, and Cabinet Minister. He was a member of the National Assembly of Quebec (MNA) for the riding of Montmorency from 1998 to 2003, representing the Parti Québécois. He served as a delegate minister in the Cabinet of Quebec Premier Bernard Landry for over a year.

Simard holds several degrees, including a doctorate in sociology from the Université Laval, a master's degree in regional development from the Université du Québec à Rimouski, a bachelor's degree in communications and sociophysiology from the Université du Québec à Montréal, and a diploma in European federalism in Italy.

In the late 1980s, Simard was the vice-president of the Canadian liberal youth-wing but resigned following the failure of the Meech Lake Accord in 1990. He then joined the Bloc Québécois and later the Parti Québécois, where he was a political adviser for former Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau during the 1995 Quebec referendum campaign. In the 1998 election, he was elected as MNA for Montmorency, serving until 2001 as the Parliamentary Assistant to the State Minister of Education and Youth, François Legault. In 2002 until the end of the PQ mandate, he was named the Delegate Minister for Environment and Water. When the PQ lost the 2003 elections to the Quebec Liberal Party and Jean Charest, Simard was defeated by Liberal Candidate Raymond Bernier.

After the 2003 elections, Simard worked as a lecturer at Université Laval in the faculty of industrial relations. Since 2004, he has been a teacher at the faculty of social sciences and social work at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, where he also serves as an administration staff member since 2006.