Jean-Luc Pépin
The Right Honourable Jean-Luc Pépin (November 1 1924 – September 30 1995) was a Canadian academic, politician and Cabinet minister.
Pepin was a political science professor at the University of Ottawa when he was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1963 Canadian election as a Liberal MP from Quebec. From 1965 until 1972 he served in the cabinets of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau in various capacities including Minister of MInes and Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce overseeing the decision to have Canada adopt the metric system. He lost his seat in the 1972 Canadian election and returned to public life until 1975 when Trudeau appointed him to chair the Anti-Inflation Board. In 1977 he and former Premier of Ontario John Robarts were appointed to head the Task Force on Canadian Unity which had been created by the federal government as a response to the election of the Parti Quebecois in the 1976 provincial election. The task force issued a report in 1979 which recommended against entrenching language rights in the Canadian Constitution and for the reduction of federal powers in all areas but economic management. The Task Force also recommended the replacement of the Canadian Senate with a "Council of the Federation" whose members would be appointed by provincial governments and to grant the provinces a say in appointements to the Supreme Court of Canada. Most of these recommendations were rejected by the federal government and did not make their way into the new Constitution which was enacted in 1982.
After a seven year absence, Pepin returned to the House of Commons in the 1979 Canadian election and, once the Liberals returned to power in 1980, became Minister of Transport until 1983 and then as a Minister of State to the Department of External Affairs and Minister responsible for La Francophonie. Following heart surgery, he retired from politics in 1984 and returned to academia as a fellow a the University of Ottawa's Institute on Public Policy.
In 1977 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.