He returned to the National Assembly as a member of the Parti Québécois in 1981. Fréchette was Finance Minister in the cabinet of René Lévesque from April 1981 to September 1982, then Minister of Labour until October 1985. He was Minister of Justice and Minister of Labour in the cabinet of Pierre-Marc Johnson from October to December 1985.[2] He was defeated by a narrow margin in 1985.
Retirement
After his defeat in 1985, he returned to the practice of law and also hosted an open line show on a Sherbrooke radio station. In 1988, he was named a judge in the Quebec Superior Court at Montreal and was assigned to Saint-François district in 1991.
He died of cancer, aged 73, on 20 March 2007 in Sherbrooke, Quebec.