Bloc Quebecois

The Bloc Québécois is a democratic socialist separatist party in Canada that only runs in the province of Quebec during elections.

Some people^{[Who says?]} relate them to the Front de libération du Québec, which was responsible for over 200 bombings, kidnappings (including James Richard Cross, a British trade representative) and the deaths of 5 people, including Pierre Laporte, a provincial cabinet minister. The FLQ is now history and was far apart from the founding members of the bloc in the political spectrum.

The party was created after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, a pan-Canadian agreement on the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society, according the province a constitutional veto and other cultural rights. The treaty was signed in 1987 but was not ratified by enough provincial legislatures. Their first members of parliament were dissident Quebec Members of Parliament(MP) from the Conservative Party of Canada and the Liberal Party of Canada who had abandoned the federalist option after the failure of the Meech Lake Accords.

The is currently lead by Gilles Duceppe who was the first elected Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons through a by-election in August 1990. He was elected leader of the party in 1997.

At their first general election, in 1993, the Bloc elected 54 MPs out of 75 seats in Québec. As of November 2009, they have 51 elected MPs at the Canadian parliament.

In Québec they run against the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party. They are largely ignored by the rest of Canada, except maybe by the thousands of French-speaking Canadians living outside of Quebec.

It is now using its seats to further the French-Canadian nationalistic political agenda. Its provincial equivalant is the Parti Québécois.