Rhéal Fortin

Rhéal Fortin is a Canadian lawyer, politician and interim leader of the Bloc Québécois. A lawyer by profession, he is the president of Bissonnette Fortin Giroux, a law firm in Saint-Jérôme. He studied law at University of Sherbrooke. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2015 election in Rivière-du-Nord as a member of the Bloc Québécois.
Fortin was named interim leader of the Bloc Québécois on October 22, 2015 following the resignation of Gilles Duceppe as leader after Duceppe was unable to win his seat in the October 19, 2015 federal election.

Fortin started working when he was 18. He completed a CEGEP electrician's diploma, equivalent to junior college. He was a worker in a factory in Laval from 1977 to 1985, at which time he left to attend university to study law. After completing his legal education, he began practising law in Saint-Jérôme in 1992.

He has been politically active ever since high school, when he volunteered to put up lawn signs for the Parti Québécois. He ran for the Parti Québécois nomination for the election for the National Assembly of Quebec for Prévost, but lost to Gilles Robert. In 2015 he ran for the Bloc Québécois in the riding Rivière-du-Nord and won. He became the interim leader of Bloc Québécois on October 22, 2015.