Michel Bissonnet

Bissonnet obtained a licence in law at Université de Montréal in 1976 and was admitted to the Barreau du Québec the following year. Prior to his years as a lawyer, he worked for the City of Montreal for 17 years in various positions including archivist and assistant office manager.

Bissonnet was formerly involved in the federal New Democratic Party and its Quebec wing, the defunct Nouveau Parti démocratique du Québec. He was a candidate in the 1967 federal by-election for that party in the district of Papineau. He finished third with 15 per cent of the vote. Liberal candidate André Ouellet was elected.

He ran as an Action Laval candidate for the city council of Laval in 1969 and served as mayor for the city of Saint-Léonard from 1978 to 1981.

Bissonnet successfully ran as the Liberal candidate in the district of Jeanne-Mance in the 1981 election. He was re-elected in the 1985, 1989, 1994 and 1998 elections. He also won re-election in the merged district of Jeanne-Mance–Viger in 2003 and 2007. After 27 years in the National Assembly, he stepped down in mid-2008 as both President of the National Assembly and MNA to run for borough mayor of Saint-Leonard in that year's by-election.

He served as Vice-President of the National Assembly during his third term of office from 1989 to 1994, Assistant Whip of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997 and Third Vice-President of the National Assembly during his fifth term from 1999 to 2003. He became the President of the National Assembly (Speaker of the House) after the Liberal victory in 2003. In 2007, Bissonnet was reconfirmed as President of the National Assembly.

In July 2008, Bissonnet announced that he would leave provincial politics and run again for the mayoral position of Saint-Léonard, now a borough of Montreal following the 2002 amalgamation. He had become the longest serving MNA of the 38th National Assembly, even though he had never been appointed to the Cabinet.^[1]

Bissonnet ran under Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay's Union Montreal label. An election had been called to fill the position in the aftermath of the resignation of Frank Zampino. Bissonnet was elected with 94.3 per cent of the vote in September 2008, against Livio DiCelmo of Projet Montréal.^[2] He was re-elected in the 2009 municipal elections.

In the 2013 Montreal municipal elections, he was re-elected borough mayor of Saint-Léonard under Équipe Denis Coderre. He was re-elected in 2017 and in 2021 as well. He consistently got more than 64% of the vote in each election. He announced in late June 2025 that he would not be running for sixth term as borough mayor. He cited health reasons and his age as a few factors for his decision.^[3] He is the longest-serving mayor in Saint-Leonard’s history, with a total of 20 years in office; 17 as borough mayor and 3 as mayor of the former independent city.

Jeanne-Mance–Viger

Jeanne-Mance

1967 Papineau By-election

Borough Mayor Saint-Leonard

• National Assembly of Quebec
• Politics of Quebec