engineering

Martine Ouellet

Martine Ouellet is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Martine Ouellet rather than just read about it. In short: Martine Ouellet (French pronunciation: [maʁtin wɛlɛt]; born April 8, 1969) is a Canadian politician who served as leader of the Bloc Québécois from 2017 to 2018. She was the Minister of Natural Resources in the Quebec government from 2012 to 2014.

Key takeaways

Martine Ouellet belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Martine Ouellet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Martine Ouellet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Martine Ouellet (French pronunciation: [maʁtin wɛlɛt]; born April 8, 1969) is a Canadian politician who served as leader of the Bloc Québécois from 2017 to 2018. She was the Minister of Natural Resources in the Quebec government from 2012 to 2014. Ouellet was first elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in a by-election on July 5, 2010, representing the electoral district of Vachon, standing as a candidate for Parti Québécois. On May 14, 2021, Ouellet announced her return to politics by creating a new provincial party, named Climat Québec.

Early life and education Ouellet is from the South Shore. She graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University in 1992 and received an M.B.A from the HEC Montreal. Prior to her first election, Ouellet worked as an engineer for Hydro-Québec.

Political career

Provincial Ouellet was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in a by-election on July 5, 2010, representing the electoral district of Vachon, standing as a candidate for Parti Québécois. After the Parti Québécois won the 2012 election, she was appointed as Minister of Natural Resources in the Marois government. She held the position until the government's defeat in the 2014 election. Ouellet contested the leadership of the Parti Québécois in 2015 and in 2016, placing third both times.

Federal On February 5, 2017, Ouellet announced her candidacy in the 2017 Bloc Québécois leadership election. At the same time, she resigned from the Parti Québécois and sat in the National Assembly of Quebec as an independent. She stated that she will not seek to enter the federal House of Commons via a by-election, saying that she wants to "have a foot" in both Quebec City and Ottawa. After being the only candidate in the race at the end of the nomination period, she was officially acclaimed as leader on March 18, 2017. In June 2017, she faced a caucus revolt after her chief of staff, Louis-Philippe Dubois, leaked information to the media in an effort to discredit former interim leader Rhéal Fortin. Members of caucus suspected he had leaked the information on Ouellet's instructions. Ouellet resolved the conflict by firing Dubois and apologising to Fortin. On February 26, 2018, Gabriel Ste-Marie resigned as the Bloc's House Leader due to conflicts with Ouellet. In a tumultuous caucus meeting, seven of the Bloc's 10 MPs voiced their opposition to Ouellet's leadership, accusing her of having an authoritarian style and boycotted Question Period in order to express their dissent. The previous week, Ouellet had given a speech to the Bloc's general council in which she complained that she had felt resistance to her leadership from caucus since becoming leader in 2017 and also argued that the Bloc needs to emphasize Quebec independence rather than soft-pedal it. Fortin criticised her speech saying: "A leader who opens a general council by posing as a victim, then saying that she is a victim of leaks and resistance. For me, it’s not a speech worthy of a leader." The party's general council also approved paying Ouellet a salary of $95,000 as, without a seat in the House of Commons, she was not eligible for a parliamentary leader's salary. It also approved a supplementary payment, which would have resulted in a total salary of $200,000 once her term as a member of the Quebec National Assembly ended with the 2018 provincial election. Opposition to Ouellet came to a breaking point on February 28, 2018 when seven MPs quit the caucus to sit as independents, citing Ouellet's alleged authoritarianism as their reason for leaving. The defections left the Bloc with a caucus of three MPs. More than 20 ex-Bloc MPs, including former leader Gilles Duceppe, issued an open letter supporting the seven current MPs who had resigned from caucus and demanding Ouellet's resignation. Nevertheless, after a lengthy meeting, the party's executive issued a statement supporting Ouellet's leadership but also stating that the seven rebels could keep their Bloc Québécois memberships and would not be expelled from the party for quitting the caucus, inviting them to return to the caucus in the future. However, on May 1, the seven MPs announced that they were severing all ties with the BQ and considering founding a new political party: Québec debout. On June 3, 2018, Ouellet was defeated in a leadership review, with 32% of members voting in favour of her continued leadership and 67% opposed. In a media conference held the day after the results were announced, Ouellet blamed party president and MP Mario Beaulieu, Gilles Duceppe, and the party's old guard for her defeat, accusing them of campaigning against her, and announced that she was resigning as party leader effective June 11, 2018. By September 17, 2018, all seven members of Québec debout had rejoined the Bloc Québécois caucus.

Return to provincial politics On May 14, 2021, Ouellet announced her return to politics by creating a new provincial party: Climat Québec. She was a candidate in the 2023 Jean-Talon provincial by-election but she came in sixth place with only 1% of the vote.

Electoral record

Source: Official Results, Le Directeur général des élections du Québec Archived 2012-03-15 at the Wayback Machine.

References

External links

"Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec. Martine Ouellet (in French)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Martine Ouellet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Martine Ouellet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Martine Ouellet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Martine Ouellet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Martine Ouellet

In research: Martine Ouellet appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Martine Ouellet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Martine Ouellet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1969 births, 21st-century Canadian women engineers, 21st-century Canadian women politicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Martine Ouellet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Martine Ouellet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Martine Ouellet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Martine Ouellet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Martine Ouellet in simple terms?

Why does Martine Ouellet matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Martine Ouellet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Martine Ouellet.