Roch La Salle
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Roch La Salle, PC (born August 6, 1929) is a former Canadian politician.
La Salle had had a career in public relations and sales when he first attempted to win a seat in the Canadian House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative in the 1965 federal election. He was defeated, but won on his next attempt in Joliette in the 1968 election. He was one of only a handful of Quebec Tory Members of Parliament in that Parliament.
La Salle quit the party in 1971 to protest Tory leader Robert Stanfield's rejection of the concept that Canada was composed of "two nations" (deux nations) and that Quebec had the right to self-determination. He was re-elected as an independent candidate in the 1972 election with the support of the separatist Parti Québécois. He returned to the Tory caucus in early 1974.
He was one of only two Tory MPs elected from Quebec in the 1979 election that brought the Conservatives to power under Joe Clark. La Salle served as Minister of Supply and Services in the short-lived (1979-80) Clark government.
La Salle was the only Quebec Tory MP returned in the 1980 election. In early 1981, he resigned his seat in order to move to provincial politics and take the leadership of the Union Nationale party. The UN had failed to win any seats in the 1981 Quebec election. La Salle had not run in his home town of Joliette because of his friendship with the incumbent Member of the National Assembly. He did not win the neighbouring riding in which he ran. He returned to the federal House of Commons in a by-election that was called later that year to fill the vacancy his resignation had created.
When the Tories again formed government after the 1984 election, this time under Brian Mulroney, La Salle became Minister of Public Works. He was forced to leave Cabinet in 1987 when he was charged with accepting a bribe and influence peddling. He denied any wrongdoing, but did not run in the 1988 election. The criminal case against him was eventually dropped.
