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I always imagined it would happen in a dank and smokey bar. A woman in trenchcoat buttoned up to her ears would sit down, slide a manilla envelope to me across the rye-soaked table, and disappear as soon as she arrived. Pulling out the page inside, I’d take a deep breath and say:

“Jean Charest? I haven’t heard that name in years.”

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I did not expect that my reintroduction to the former premier of Quebec would be under the guise of Conservative party succession planning. But here we are.

While the rest of the country may think of Charest, if they think of him at all, as federalist crusader and longtime grand poobah of Quebec, for many in Quebec, he’s remembered more for the swirling corruption allegations and his anti-democratic hue.

For many in Quebec, he’s remembered more for the swirling corruption allegations and his anti-democratic hue

Why Charest would invite the scrutiny of his record now, some eight years after he lost his own seat in a bruising provincial election, escapes me.

For much of his near-decade as premier, Charest acted as a fastidious technocrat, working to bring the province’s books to balance while trying to get the economy turning over. And to that end, he deserves a lot of credit — Quebec weathered the 2008 recession better than Ontario, even as Charest raised taxes to bring the deficit to heel.