GREAT FRIENDS

Madeleine Parent, 1949, Montréal.
Photographie Nakash

Born in Montreal in 1918, Madeleine Parent proved early on to be a committed activist. From 1937 to 1940, while a student at McGill University, Madeleine played an active role, demanding that the federal government grant university scholarships to young people from low-income families.
In 1942, with Kent Rowley whom she married in 1953, Madeleine led a union movement, organizing 6,000 Dominion Textile workers in Montreal and Valleyfield. The 1946 strike was very bitter, particularly in Valleyfield. It lasted 100 days but ended in victory for the union with the signing of the first collective agreements in these factories.

During the strike in Lachute in 1947, Premier Maurice Duplessis had Madeline Parent and Kent Rowley arrested for “seditious conspiracy,” linking them to the “Communist menace.” The legal proceedings ended in a not-guilty verdict in 1955. But during that period, trade union activity proved difficult and eventually impossible for Madeleine and Kent in Québec, with the American union (later found guilty of corruption) expelling them from its ranks in 1952 in the middle of a cotton-mills workers’ strike.

So, Madeleine and Kent carried on their work in Ontario in the 1960s and 1970s. They contributed to the development of a Canadian trade union movement independent of American unions.

After Kent Rowley’s death in 1978, Madeleine continued to help train the new generation of union activists until she retired in 1983. She then settled down in Québec, and applied her activist commitments to combating all forms of discrimination against women in Québec and the rest of Canada. As a pacifist, Madeleine took a stand against the armed conflicts that were growing and spreading throughout various parts of the world. An ardent advocate of social justice, she still participates in the debates, forums and demonstrations to combat neo-liberalism and the globalization orchestrated in Washington.

Québec painter Marcelle Ferron, one of the signatories of the Refus Global manifesto, once commented, "The greatest figure of our time, the one who did the most to change Québec, was not a signatory of the Refus Global manifesto it was trade unionist Madeleine Parent, who at the time was leading strikes in the textile industry.”

It is in this sense that Madeleine Parent is a symbol of the union movement and of many significant struggles to defend rights.

Madeleine, pioneer

Not only was Madeleine Parent a member of the Lea Roback Foundation board of directors from the outset, she was one of its founders. Her name is automatically associated with Lea Roback’s, since they fought for the same causes and were united by an unbreakable bond of friendship.

Madeleine still takes part, her health willing, in the Foundation’s activities. The Foundation’s mission and financial health are still dear to her heart. That is why in the winter of 2009, she donated personal property in the form of valuable furniture to the Foundation.

Thank you, Madeleine

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