House Leader of The Official Opposition
The Parti Québécois defeated the Liberals in the 1994 provincial election. Paradis, who was re-elected in his own riding without difficulty, served as opposition house leader after the election.
He campaigned for the "non" side in the 1995 Quebec referendum on soverignty. Shortly before election day, he warned that Quebecers would vote for sovereignty unless the federal government and other provincial premiers gave the province "a signal" that Quebecers could expect favourable changes in a united Canada. After a last-minute rally, the federalist side won a narrow victory.
Paradis initially supported Daniel Johnson against challenges to his leadership in early 1997. Relations between the two men later became tense, however, and Paradis did not support Johnson against similar challenges in 1998.
When Johnson announced his resignation in March 1998, Paradis was again rumoured as a possible leadership candidate. He was known in this period as a strong parliamentary tactician whose fiscal conservative still put him on the right wing of the party. Some questioned whether he had the public profile to lead his party to victory. In the buildup to a possible leadership contest, Paradis criticized the federal government's Millennium Fund and a new program for the elderly as encroachments on Quebec's jurisdiction. He ultimately decided not to seek the leadership, and Jean Charest was chosen as Liberal leader without opposition. Charest kept Paradis as the party's house leader.
The Liberals were again defeated in the 1998 provincial election, despite winning a plurality of the popular vote. Paradis remained as opposition house leader for the next five years, and it was expected that he would be included in cabinet if and when his party returned to power.
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