Frédéric Bérard

Frédéric Bérard has been Counsel to the firm Gattuso Bouchard Mazzone since 2017.

Mtre Bérard holds a doctorate in law (LL.D., UdeM, Unanimous Mention of Excellence and Dean’s Honour List), a master’s degree in political science (M.A., McGill), a bachelor’s degree in law (L.L.B., UdeM, Dean’s Honour List), and did post-doctoral studies in philosophy at Université Laval.

He is the author of the essays La fin de l’État de droit ? (Coup de cœur Renaud-Bray, quadruple bestseller, Palmarès Gaspard), Droit à l’indépendance (Prix des libraires, double bestseller, translated into English and published internationally, Palmarès Gaspard), Canadian Charter and Language Rights : Pour en finir avec les mythes (Best-seller and finalist for the Donner Prize for best public policy book in Canada), Dérèglements politiques (Best-seller, Palmarès Gaspard), La terre est une poubelle en feu (Best-seller), La bêtise insiste toujours (Best-seller) and L’homme de paille. In  February 2023, his monograph on the story of Omar Khadr was published by Éditions Saint-Jean.

He is a regular political and judicial columnist for the daily Métro, Cogeco, Radio-Canada, 104.7FM, Le Point Magazine, in, as well as being a guest commentator with other Quebec and Western media.

Mtre Bérard is the recipient of fourteen (14) awards for excellence in university teaching, including the André-Morel Faculty Excellence Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award (UdeM), and the Excellence in Teaching Award (McGill). He has also received a number of scholarships and fellowships over the course of his career, including those offered by SSHRC, McGill University Graduate Students, the Donner Foundation and the Université de Montréal (Jacques Brossard Grant and Lavery de Billy Grant). An award created by the Fonds étudiant pour la défense juridique des animaux (FEDJA) bears his name.

Founder and director of the National Observatory on Language Rights, Mtre Bérard is also a researcher at the Centre de recherche en droit public of the Université de Montréal, and served as Honorary President of the last edition of the Festival international de théâtre de Mont-Laurier, the largest of its kind in North America.

Author of some twenty articles in various scientific journals and co-author of the essay Précis d’interprétation législative, he has also given more than sixty lectures, including a TED Talk, in Canada and around the world, notably in Italy, France, the United Kingdom (Cambridge), Poland and Morocco. His work has been cited by the Quebec Superior Court, the Quebec Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.  In 2016, Les Libraires magazine considered him one of the “ten essayists under 40 who are transforming Quebec”.  From 2016 to 2019, he served on the Board of Directors of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). In March 2019, he was appointed by the federal government to chair the national consultations on the reform Loi sur les langues officielles. In 2021, he served on the Expert Committee formed for the purpose of reforming the Act.

A member of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec (FPJQ), he is the creator and host of Discussions de salon, a political talk show broadcast by Métro which has hosted the likes of Trudeau, Singh, Blanchet, Couillard, Lisée, Bérubé, Duceppe, Anglade and Nadeau-Dubois. Sometimes an international reporter, he has completed various reports in some twenty countries, covering Israel, Haiti, Colombia, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Greece and Honduras, as well as the fate of the Brazilian favélas since Bolsonaro, Auschwitz, Guantanamo, the demonstrations of the Yellow Vests and those related to the recent Chilean popular revolt. This last video was selected for presentation at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois.

 Frédéric Bérard heads the firm’s team representing the Fédération Autonome de l’Enseignement (FAE) in its challenge of the constitutionality of the provisions of the Act respecting the secular nature of the State (Bill 21) as well as in its challenge of the decisions and measures taken by the government after it demanded that teachers return to class, despite the state of health emergency affecting Quebec.