Patrick Brazeau facts for kids

Patrick Brazeau (born November 11, 1974) is a Canadian senator from Quebec. At the age of 34, he was and is the youngest member of the Senate during his appointment. From February 2006 until January 2009 he held the position of national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. Brazeau was expelled from the Conservative caucus following his February 7, 2013 arrest for domestic assault and .... On September 15, 2015, Brazeau pleaded guilty to simple assault and ... possession as part of a plea deal in which other assault charges were dropped, and he was acquitted of ....

On October 28, 2015, he was granted an absolute discharge by a Quebec court; he was thus not incarcerated and avoided having a criminal record. However, Brazeau remained suspended until September 2016, when separate charges of fraud and breach of trust related to his disallowed expense claims were withdrawn by the Crown.

Life and career

Brazeau is an Algonquin from the Kitigan Zibi reserve near Maniwaki. He worked at HMCS Carleton, a Royal Canadian Naval Reserve unit based in Ottawa that operates under the Canadian Forces Maritime Command. Brazeau earned a Quebec Diploma of College Studies in social sciences from CEGEP Heritage College (Gatineau) and studied, but dropped out of, civil law at the University of Ottawa.

Fluent in both official Canadian languages, English and French, Brazeau's language preference is French.

Brazeau joined the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) in 2001 and was elected vice-chief in April 2005. He acted as national chief from February 2006 until his election later in November of the same year. He is a member of CAP's affiliate, Alliance Autochtone du Quebec Inc. also known as the Native Alliance of Quebec, or the AAQ or NAQ.

Brazeau pursued a very vocal strategy to obtain repeal of Section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act as his CAP vision. His position was that Section 67 impeded the individual human rights of aboriginals by its insistence that communal Indian Act rights superseded the CHRA. In this position he was supported by editorials of the National Post and the Globe and Mail. Brazeau endorsed passage of Bill C-21 as a step toward reform of Aboriginal governance, suggesting on 20 June 2008 that the extension of human rights protection “will ultimately lead to the dismantling of the Indian Act.”

On December 22, 2008, Brazeau was appointed to the Senate on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He was sworn in as a senator on January 8, 2009.

On March 31, 2012, Brazeau lost in a celebrity boxing match to Liberal MP (and future Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau. Brazeau has stated that he would like a rematch with Trudeau but Trudeau declined to participate in another boxing match.

On May 30, 2015, Brazeau acted as a guest referee at a Great North Wrestling event at the Earl Armstrong Arena in Ottawa. Brazeau ended up getting bodyslammed through a table during the course of the match.

In the early hours of January 19, 2016, Brazeau was admitted to hospital in critical but stable condition after he was found seriously injured in his home. The Quebec provincial police issued a statement indicating Brazeau's injuries did not appear related to criminal activity, and the Hull hospital released a statement saying his injuries were treated by successful surgery and were not considered life-threatening.

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Brazeau has been a proponent of Bill S-254, sponsoring its introduction to the Senate in November, 2022. The Bill, if passed, would require health warning labels on all alcohol bottles to warn consumers about the potential risks of drinking.