Richard Nadeau

Richard Nadeau
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Gatineau
In office January 23, 2006 – May 2, 2011
Preceded by	Françoise Boivin
Succeeded by	Françoise Boivin
Personal details
Born	(1959-04-05) April 5, 1959 Hawkesbury, Ontario
Party	Bloc Québécois (federal) Action Gatineau (municipal)
Spouse	Edith Gendron
Alma mater	University of Ottawa (BA, BEd)
Profession	Teacher

Richard Nadeau (born April 5, 1959) is a Canadian teacher and politician who is the former Member of Parliament for the riding of Gatineau.

Early life and career

Nadeau attended the University of Ottawa where he received degrees in history, political science and education. In addition to being a teacher, Nadeau has worked as an adviser and director of educational programs, and as a researcher and an archivist. He has also been a lobbyist for French education and has been involved in community theatre in Saskatchewan. He taught at the Gisèle Lalonde High School in Orleans, near Ottawa, where he, amongst other things, supervised and acted as speaker for the model UN club.

Political career

Federal politics

In the 2000 federal election, Nadeau finished second in Gatineau behind Mark Assad of the Liberal Party of Canada by 13,197 votes. In the 2004 federal election, he finished second behind Françoise Boivin of the Liberals by 830 votes—a surprisingly close result, given that this had long been reckoned as one of the more federalist regions of Quebec.

He was elected in the 2006 federal election in a rematch against Boivin, becoming the first Bloc MP elected in the National Capital Region. He was also the third Bloc MP ever elected in the entire Outaouais region, after Maurice Dumas and Mario Laframboise.

In the 2008 Canadian federal election Nadeau received the smallest percentage of votes for a winning candidate, at just 29.13%, meaning that less than 3 out of 10 voters chose him as their candidate, despite him winning a plurality of votes and carrying the district for the Bloc over Boivin, now running for the New Democratic Party.

Boivin heavily defeated Nadeau by over 27,000 votes in the 2011 election as part of the massive NDP surge across Quebec. He tallied barely half of his vote from 2008.

In the 2025 election he again ran as the Bloc candidate in Gatineau, where he came third.

Municipal politics

On May 26, 2025, less than a month after losing the 2025 federal election, Nadeau announced that he would be seeking the Action Gatineau nomination in Lac-Beauchamp District for the 2025 municipal election. He was nominated on June 30, 2025.

Personal life

Nadeau's wife, Edith Gendron, is the head of a Quebec separatist group called "Le Quebec, Un Pays". She was also the Parti Québécois candidate for the riding of Chapleau in Gatineau, in the 2007 provincial election. Nadeau's daughter, Myriam, was the Action Gatineau city councillor for Pointe-Gatineau District from 2013 to 2021.

Electoral record

2025 Canadian federal election: Gatineau
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Liberal	Steven MacKinnon	34,751	60.54	+10.49	$94,914.50
	Conservative	Kethlande Pierre	10,982	19.13	+8.02	$20,982.21
	Bloc Québécois	Richard Nadeau	9,373	16.33	–7.09	$31,981.46
	New Democratic	Daniel Simoncic	1,615	2.81	–5.81	none listed
	People's	Mathieu Saint-Jean	505	0.88	–3.17	$513.91
	Marxist–Leninist	Pierre Soublière	173	0.30	+0.20	$0.00
Total valid votes/expense limit			57,399	98.91	–	$131,410.18
Total rejected ballots			633	1.09
Turnout			58,032	68.20
Eligible voters			85,086
	Liberal notional hold		Swing		+1.24
Source: Elections Canada
Note: number of eligible voters does not include voting day registrations.

2011 Canadian federal election: Gatineau
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	New Democratic	Françoise Boivin	35,262	61.83	+35.71
	Bloc Québécois	Richard Nadeau	8,619	15.11	-14.04
	Liberal	Steve MacKinnon	7,975	13.98	-11.34
	Conservative	Jennifer Gearey	4,532	7.95	-8.86
	Green	Jonathan Meijer	639	1.12	-1.45
Total valid votes/Expense limit			57,027	100.00
Total rejected ballots			365	0.64
Turnout			57,392	64.10
Eligible voters			89,537

2008 Canadian federal election
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Bloc Québécois	Richard Nadeau	15,189	29.15	-10.11	$78,498
	New Democratic	Françoise Boivin	13,612	26.12	+16.11	$87,035
	Liberal	Michel Simard	13,193	25.32	-5.92	$40,288
	Conservative	Denis Tassé	8,762	16.81	+0.07	$52,464
	Green	David Inglis	1,342	2.57	-0.12
Total valid votes/Expense limit			52,098	100.00	$88,989
	Bloc Québécois hold		Swing		-13.11

2006 Canadian federal election
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Bloc Québécois	Richard Nadeau	21,093	39.25	-1.02	$72,093
	Liberal	Françoise Boivin	16,826	31.31	-10.78	$70,768
	Conservative	Patrick Robert	9,014	16.77	+9.19	$62,953
	New Democratic	Anne Levesque	5,354	9.96	+4.24	$5,811
	Green	Gail Walker	1,456	2.71	-0.36	$5
Total valid votes/Expense limit			53,743	100.00	$82,260
	Bloc Québécois gain		Swing

2004 Canadian federal election
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Liberal	Françoise Boivin	19,198	42.09	-9.37	$46,494
	Bloc Québécois	Richard Nadeau	18,368	40.27	14.87	$20,574
	Conservative	Gérald Nicolas	3,461	7.59	-9.65
	New Democratic	Dominique Vaillancourt	2,610	5.72	+2.24
	Green	Brian Gibb	1,402	3.07		$144
	Marijuana	Stéphane Salko	453	0.99	–
	Marxist–Leninist	Gabriel Girard-Bernier	125	0.27	0.00
Total valid votes/Expense limit			45,617	100.00	$80,437

Works

• Nevitte, Neil; Blais, André; Gidengil, Elisabeth; Nadeau, Richard (2000). Unsteady State: The 1997 Canadian Federal Election. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-541466-0.

External links

• Richard Nadeau – Parliament of Canada biography