Stéphane Maurice Dion is a Canadian diplomat, political scientist and retired politician who has been the Canadian Ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the European Union since 2017. Dion was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from 2015 until he was shuffled out of Cabinet in 2017. He was also the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons from 2006 to 2008.
Dion was Member of Parliament for the Montreal riding of Saint-Laurent from 1996 until 2017. Dion was recruited by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 1996 to be Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in the aftermath of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum. His reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada, produced Reference Re Secession of Quebec and his Clarity Act, which provided guidelines for subsequent referenda. Dion was in charge of implementing the Kyoto Protocol as Minister of Environment for Chrétien's successor, Paul Martin, whom he succeeded as party leader after the Liberal defeat in the 2006 federal election. Dion ran on an environmental platform in the 2008 federal election, but was defeated by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. After the subsequent parliamentary dispute, he was replaced as Liberal Leader by Michael Ignatieff.
Before entering politics, Dion was a professor of political science at the Université de Montréal whose research focused on Canadian federalism and public administration. He frequently wrote and spoke out against the Quebec sovereignty movement.
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28. September 1955
