Pierre Curzi

Pierre Curzi (born February 11, 1946 in Montreal, Quebec) is an actor, screenwriter and politician in Quebec. He is a former Member of the National Assembly of Quebec (MNA) for the riding of Borduas in the Montérégie region south of Montreal. Elected under the Parti Québécois (PQ) banner, he later sat as an independent. Politics Curzi entered politics when he announced his candidacy for the riding of Borduas in the 2007 provincial elections, following the retirement of Jean-Pierre Charbonneau. He defeated the Action démocratique du Québec's Claude Gauthier by over 2,000 votes. He was later named the PQ critic for culture, communications and language. Curzi was forced to apologize and retract a statement he made in October 2007 during a radio interview that appeared to suggest that a sovereign Quebec would have "more teeth" and could potentially remove the voting rights of Quebec's English-speaking community living on Montreal's West Island. He faced some criticism in 2008 as one of two MNAs, along with Daniel Turp, who endorsed a controversial petition opposing Paul McCartney's performance at Quebec City's 400th anniversary celebrations. In September 2010, Curzi expressed on the television interview show Les Francs-tireurs his theory that there was a shortage of Francophone players on the National Hockey League team the Montreal Canadiens and that this was "damned well political" and the result of a federalist plot.