SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — The Late Alban D'Amours, C.M., G.O.Q.

Honourable senators, I rise today to pay tribute to a great economist and a pillar of Quebec’s cooperative community, Alban D’Amours, the former CEO of Desjardins Group, who passed away recently.

After graduating from Université Laval with a degree in economics, Alban D’Amours went on to a brilliant career marked by a commitment to the common good and to cooperation. He made society more united in Quebec and beyond. In recognition of his public service and accomplishments, he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec in 2008 and a member of the Order of Canada in 2012.

Alban D’Amours began his career as an economics professor at the University of Sherbrooke before becoming head of the department just a few years later. In 1980, he joined the Quebec public service, where he served as the deputy minister of revenue and the associate deputy minister of energy and resources.

In 1988, Mr. D’Amours joined Desjardins Group. That is where we first crossed paths, when he became my boss. He was the vice-president of research and planning, while I was working as a senior economist.

After serving in several different roles, Alban D’Amours became the president and CEO of Desjardins in 2000, a position he held for eight years.

According to the current president of Desjardins Group, Denis Dubois, Alban was a visionary, a humanitarian and a committed leader. Mr. D’Amours’s time as president was impressive. By creating the current structure of the Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec, with assets now amounting to almost $500 billion, he helped ensure the stability and survival of this major financial institution.

At the end of his term as president of Desjardins, Mr. D’Amours continued to serve the public interest when he agreed to chair a panel of experts examining the future of Quebec’s retirement system from 2011 to 2013.

A few years later, Alban summarized this important chapter of his professional life in his book Le coopératisme, un antidote aux dérives du capitalisme : réflexions ancrées dans mon parcours chez Desjardins, a reflection on his personal journey with Desjardins and why he saw the cooperative system as an antidote to the extremes of capitalism.

As a father, he must have felt deep pride when his daughter Sophie became rector of Université Laval, his alma mater, in 2017. She is the first woman to ever hold that position.

In closing, I want to offer Mr. D’Amours’s family and loved ones my sincere condolences. His contribution to the cooperative movement, and to Quebec and Canadian society, will be felt for generations to come.

On behalf of all senators, thank you, Mr. D’Amours.