Jean-Pierre G. & Thérèse M.

Some of my encounters this summer have been very brief and somewhat feverish. For example, the one where Ginette moves her glasses away from her face to give me a “Têtes-à-claques” look! Other meetings took more time as they required a second meeting. These allowed, however, deeper conversations. This was the case with Jean-Pierre and Thérèse.

I first met them briefly in Montreal-North’s Pilon Park, at La Place de l’engagement (The place for commitment). We reconnected a few weeks later when I attended, at their invitation, the monthly luncheon of the Montreal North section of the Quebec Association for the rights of retirees and pre-retirees (AQDR-MN). The event was not only crowded with local pensioners, but also attended by the borough’s mayor, a city councilor and the assistant to a MPP, who were there to shake hands.

The program was pretty busy that day. Jean-Pierre, who is a former member of the executive, had a few minutes to talk about an upcoming 'croissants & coffee' event with people from the Dulcinea Langfelder company. As part of the tour of her dance-theater show entitled Victoria, Ms. Langfelder herself was to present her creative process and encourage participation to workshops on Alzheimer's and the role of caregivers and health workers.

The couple met in St-Donat. Originally from Joliette, Thérèse was then a member of the community of the Good Shepherd Sisters of Anger and working at a summer camp for young women in difficult situations. It was at a group’s outing that they got to know each other. At the time, Jean-Pierre, who is from Montreal, was working for the insurance company Les Prévoyants du Canada. He remained with this company for 39 years surviving the numerous changes in ownership and corporate names. Following her release from the order and the secularization of social services at the turn of seventies, Thérèse became a social worker.

Because of their common religious beliefs, Thérèse and Jean-Pierre initially started to volunteer in their local parish, St-Rémi. Longtime residents of Montreal-North, they now live in a modest postwar home built in the late forties. Believing in community mutual aid, they also participated in the Christian Workers’ Movement. Jean-Pierre, who is at ease with words and not afraid to speak publicly, often took the lead socially. Still, both spouses worked hand in hand in all their commitments.

Jean-Pierre has one piece of advice for people who plan to volunteer only after they retire: start young! This type of activity requires a certain form of culture which can only be acquired through practice. Most retirees however will certainly not have a schedule like theirs: they have been working as volunteers practically full time since their simultaneous retirement!

One of their important commitments came following a call from the director of Radio Ville-Marie, who had heard of Jean-Pierre and his social activities. This call led him to present three series of radio broadcasts over a period of three years. Their titles translate to: “Faith in movement”, “Witnesses and builders” as well as “The steps of wisdom”. The couple spent their weeks doing the research, preparation, interviewing and recording of the programs. I learned to my surprise that these broadcasts were prerecorded with the help of a single technician in a small room of the St. Benoit Church rectory on Fleury Street West. This modernist style church has been known as the Church of God of the Prophecy of Montreal-North-West since 2009.

Among the remarkable people they have met through their volunteer activities, Jean-Pierre mentioned Yves Lapierre of the Christian Movement of Workers and Claude Émond, who was for 27 years the musical accompanist of Fernand Gignac.  Mr. Émond, who became their personal friend, passed away in 2013.

More recently, they met a young man, François Boucher, who was campaigning for the environment and thought inconceivable that Montreal-North was one of the few Montreal boroughs without an Eco-Quartier (as local center for environmental services to the citizens). With a group of 6 or 7 people, Jean-Pierre and Thérèse started ECONORD in 2009, a non-profit organization (NPO) that, at first, developed a program and raised the necessary funds so that young people could get paid to start environmental projects in Montreal-North. This NPO initiated by Jean-Pierre later became the local Éco Quartier’s fiduciary. Having for motto “The environment ... a treasure that must be protected”, its mission was to improve the quality of urban life for Montreal-North residents and to promote an ecological society.

The couple is still a member of this organization, which became a solidarity cooperative in 2014. Much of its actions now aim to improve access to fresh and healthy vegetables at affordable prices for low-income households. Public markets, seedling in a mini-greenhouse and maintaining a community garden are some of the recent initiatives of the ECONORD volunteers.

In addition to all this, Jean-Pierre and Thérèse regularly attend the activities of the Maison culturelle et communautaire de Montréal-Nord and go to shows in the cultural centers of neighboring boroughs.

Retirees like them have no time to get bored!

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Jean-Pierre and Thérèse at La Place de l'Engagement (the Place for commitement), Pilon Park, Montreal-North

Élyse R.

Fer et Titane (French for Iron and Titanium) is the title of a song by Gilles Vigneault*, who has also written many more songs then the well known refrain of Gens du pays. It is also the original name of a major industrial polluter that operates a vast metallurgical complex in Sorel, one of the «Heavy Metal» cities in Quebec.

Élyse is a native of that city. What she actually knows is that she was born in the Notre-Dame de Sorel hospital, but was adopted by a Verdun family when she was only a few days’ old. This is quite paradoxical for a lady who is now executive director of Ville en vert, an organization in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, which realizes projects in urban agriculture and biodiversity, healthy eating, sustainable mobility and waste management!

People I've introduced to you so far were generally unknown to me before I met them over the course of the summer, but Élyse’s case is a little different. We first met last year in the backyard of mutual friends who held a big summer BBQ meant to become an annual ritual. As we live in the same neighborhood, I also see her sometimes in the morning with her children on their way to school on foot or by bike. She attaches, by the way, great importance to their education.

It was during the inauguration of the Environmental Showcase in Cartierville, on 28 September, that we reconnected. The group photo with her Ville en vert colleagues was taken on this occasion.

Élyse lived in different Montreal neighborhoods before settling in Ahuntsic. She and her family even stayed a few years in Laval. Even though they lived near an orange line metro station, these Montrealers at heart felt somewhat out of place.

Because her father died when she was young, her mother’s resources were modest. Élyse thus managed to pursue her studies by working twenty hours a week. She has worked at the well-known Ice cream shop in Outremont, Le Bilboquet, while studying in college and at the beginning of her university studies at UQAM in Business Administration (marketing). Like many people today, she held several jobs before reaching her early thirties. While completing an MBA in Strategic Planning and Management at UQAM, she worked as a junior analyst in financial companies, as lecture and as assistant coordinator for operations and marketing in technology firms. Having an entrepreneurial spirit, she also worked as consultant to retailers.

It was while she was studying for her Masters in Environment at Sherbrooke University that she started working in this sector in our borough. From a small Éco-quartier office in Cartierville and an initial budget hardly sufficient for a salary and a half, she has gradually assembled an organization that now employs fifteen permanent employees and a dozen other people on temporary basis. Showing strong will and initiative, this small team of highly educated young people oversees many projects with an environmental and social impact. Passionate about their projects, these people are, however, working in precarious conditions depending on the financing they obtain. Their efforts to ensure the stability of this non-profit organization are always to start over. When I see their status and that of people working in the community organizations, I cannot help but think that there is something wrong in our collective priorities!

You can get an idea of heir qualifications and of the diversity of their projects by visiting the Ville en vert website whose link appears at the end of the article. You can also purchase eco-friendly products at one of their two eco-boutiques either at 10416 Lajeunesse Street or at 5765 West, Gouin Boulevard.

Concurrently, Élyse continues to be interested in other health issues related to the environment. She participated in the "Sabotage hormonal project" of the Réseau des femmes en environnement and continues to raise awareness about the different impacts of endocrine disrupters on human health and reproduction. She also said that with everything she has seen and learned in environment, she would give much more room to science in her studies should she be a teenager today.

A citizen involved in her community, Élyse has also been vice-president and treasurer of the Regional Council of Montreal environment. After our meeting in the Ville en vert offices, she was getting ready to attend a meeting of the Board of the Collège Ahuntsic, where she serves as administrator.

Élyse in the eco-boutique L'Escale verte, 10416 Lajeunesse street

Christine L.

Unlike all the people I've shown you so far, I knew Christine a little from having played a few tennis games with her after participating in the same recreational tennis leagues. It was actually her that friendly waved hello as she was walking with her dog Charlie in the Raimbault Park while I was looking for volunteers for photos. I told myself why not ask her to pose for my project.

This is how I learned that she works at a business aviation services company in St-Laurent near the airport where she occupies an environment, health and safety manager position. She recently moved to Cartierville to get closer to work. She is now able to bike to work part of the year. A good portion of this trip, from O'Brien Avenue to the vicinity of Place Vertu, is today feasible via well planned bicycle routes. Still, she has all the same to cross Highway 40 by the Côte-Vertu overpass, which in the gives her 10km or so by one-way trip. Well enough to keep a woman fit!

You will perhaps be surprised to learn that one can study environment in Alberta. This is what Christine did at the University of Calgary. It must be said that there are many employers in the private sector there that should be concerned with environment, whether by their free will or by social pressure. For a good ten years, she lived a traveler’s life, partly for work, but also for adventure. Thus, after Western Canada, she went to Chile to for some long hikes in the mountains. Combining pleasure and necessity, she managed to find work there as a mountain guide.

It was the arrival of her daughter that took her back to Montreal, her hometown. Having been baptized in the Church of la Visitation de la Bienheureuse-Vierge-Marie, where her parents were married and where her grandfather sang, her return to this borough, where she still has family is a return to her sources.

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Christine L.

Florian R.

I met Florian at his brand new job. He will likely be the most recent local resident of this series. Indeed, on June 1st of this year, he started working at Ville en Vert, an organization whose mission is to raise awareness, educate and support both citizens and organizations in sustainable development in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville area.

Florian is from the Toulouse region in Southwestern France. After studying in a different field, he turned to horticulture, thus following the path of an elder sister. Looking for a program that met his aspirations, he chose the Cégep régional de Lanaudière offering and recently graduated from its Joliette campus. Incidentally, it is through fellow students who are now his roommates in Ahuntsic that he came to know the neighborhood.

I took his picture in the vegetable garden of the Collège André-Grasset on the day Ville en Vert took over its maintenance at the request of the college’s adviser for environment and sustainable development. The garden needed urgent attention, starting with a good weeding. I imagine that despite commendable efforts by the college, it is more difficult to find volunteer student gardeners in the summer!

Florian hopes the produce of this garden can eventually contribute to the food supply of Les Haltes Maraichères Ahuntsic, a mobile market held weekly in various locations during the summer.

When I asked him to describe himself in a word, he answered “uncertain”. There surely was a part of normal adaptation to his new environment behind that answer. It should also be noted that he is currently working on the basis of a three year post-diploma visa. In addition, as the government program that gave tuition parity to French citizens has been abolished − although our Prime Minister regularly says it will take more immigrants in the coming years −, the barriers to immigration remain important for newcomers.

It would be interesting to take a new picture in three years to see where he will be!

Have a good summer, Florian!

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Florian taking over the vegetable garden of Collège André-Grasset left in need of good care.