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Renaud Gagné was elected the new Quebec Director at the recent Quebec Council in Montreal.
“We need to turn the page and work together for the future of Unifor,” Gagné told Quebec Council delegates.
Active in the labour movement for more than 30 years, Gagné has his roots in the paper industry, which has given him the opportunity to work in all regions of Quebec.
Gagné was elected Vice-President of CEP Quebec in 2007, and became Assistant to the Quebec Director upon the founding of Unifor. He pledged to work on behalf of all of Unifor’s local unions and members, while stressing the need to rally the troops.
The May 6-8 meeting also featured addresses from National President Jerry Dias, Secretary-Treasurer Peter Kennedy and Assistant to the President Bob Orr.
Also elected were Alain Sévigny of Local 8284 as a Member at Large of the Quebec Council Executive, Diane Labrecque and Marc-André Paré to the Health and Safety and Environment Committee, Hugues Perreault to the Political Action Committee and Joachim Alexo of Local 62 and Christophe Gastaldi of Local 522 as members of the LGBT Committee.
Delegates debated about a dozen resolutions, discussed social media and the law and participated in workshops based on a discussion paper prepared by the working group on local unions.
Michel Ouimet, Unifor’s first Quebec Director, gave his last report to the Quebec Council before retiring. He was sent off with several minutes of applause by the delegates.
Ouimet spent 40 years in the Quebec labour movement. After starting his career as a technician at Bell Canada, he played a part in founding the union representing Bell technicians, before going on to take an active role in the predecessor unions to CEP.
Over all these years, Ouimet handled many important files, including pay equity for Bell Canada operators, which led to one of the largest pay equity settlements in Canada.
He also negotiated the merger of the 12,000-member Canadian Telephone Employees’ Association with CEP.
