Serge Joyal

Serge Joyal PC OC OQ (born February 1, 1945) is a Canadian Senator. A lawyer by profession, Joyal served as vice-president of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1974 general election and remained a Liberal Member of Parliament for ten years.

In 1978, Joyal, along with a group of concerned Montreal citizens that included Nick Auf der Maur and Robert Keaton, co-founded the Municipal Action Group ("MAG"). Joyal was particularly well known at the time for having supported L’Association des gens de l’air, a group which was criticizing the lack of spoken French by airport controllers. Joyal led the newly formed MAG and ran for mayor against the incumbent, Jean Drapeau. MAG succeeded in electing one member to Montreal council (auf der Maur), but Drapeau's party won 52 seats. As Joyal had not resigned his federal seat, he returned to Ottawa.

Following the 1980 general election, Joyal served as co-chair of the Joint Committee on the Patriation of the Canadian Constitution. In 1982, he joined the Cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as a Minister of State. He was appointed Secretary of State for Canada in 1982. When John Turner succeeded Trudeau in June 1984, Joyal remained in cabinet as Secretary of State. Joyal but lost his seat in the 1984 election that defeated the Turner government. On November 26, 1997, Joyal was appointed to the Canadian Senate on the recommendation of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and serves on a number of committees specialising in legal and constitutional affairs.

Joyal is an Officer of the Order of Canada, Officer of the National Order of Quebec and is also a Chevalier in France's Légion d’Honneur. He is an expert art collector and appraiser. In recent years, he has used his knowledge of the art world and his influence on the Senate and the government to get Parliament to assemble a collection of original portraits of the kings of France for the period during which Canada was first explored and colonized by France. In 2004, these paintings were placed on the walls of the central block of the Parliament Buildings, as companions to the portraits of the British and then Canadian monarchs who had been the sovereigns of the territories forming Canada since 1763.