Board of Directors

Gaétan Morin has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ since 2014. A member of the Fonds team since 1989, Mr. Morin held a variety of roles in the organization before becoming president, including Executive Vice-President, Corporate Development and Investment, Senior Vice-President, Natural Resources and Consumer Goods, Investment Director, Portfolio Manager and Financial Adviser.

Before joining the Fonds, Mr. Morin worked in business financing for various securities brokers, including Pemberton Securities and Saumier Morrisson et associés. Prior to this, he served as Project Manager for a number of mining companies and for the Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec.

Gaétan Morin sits on the boards of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, SSQ Financial Group, the Fondation de l’entrepreneurship and the Cercle des présidents du Québec. In 2005, he was awarded the Prix Mérite Ressources by the Ordre des géologues du Québec.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and geology, as well as a master’s degree in economic geology from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).

After serving as secretary general of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec for three years, Daniel Boyer was elected president during the organization’s 30th convention in November 2013.

Mr. Boyer became actively involved in the Syndicat québécois des employées et employés de service in the early 1980s and became union advisor in 1985. He was elected secretary general in 1999, a position he held until 2007 when he became the union’s president. He worked intensively on, among other things, achieving pay equity for female public sector employees.

Mr. Boyer serves on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Labour Congress and on the General Council of the International Trade Union Confederation. He is also a member of the Office québécois de la langue française and of the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail.

Daniel Boyer holds a degree in physical education and industrial relations from Université de Montréal.

Pierre-Maurice Vachon is a well-known personality in the Beauce region where he is both a businessman and a political figure. He has worn several hats, first as CEO, then corporate director, followed by prefect and mayor. To this day, he remains interested in business and management.

Between 1990 and 2003, Mr. Vachon was CEO and chairman of Cartem, a company he helped found in 1977. He served as mayor of Sainte-Marie for 16 years as well as prefect of the Nouvelle-Beauce CMA and president of the Fédération québécoise des municipalités (FQM). Earlier in his career, Mr. Vachon was the manager of production-related administrative services at the family company, Les Gâteaux Vachon, where he remained for 10 years.

Mr. Vachon has been a board member of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ since 2005 and a member of the Turnaround Board since 2004. He also serves on the boards of, among others, SSQ General Insurance Company, P.H. Tech and the Fonds régional de solidarité FTQ – Chaudière-Appalaches.

Pierre-Maurice Vachon holds a business administration degree from Université Laval.

Serge Cadieux has been actively involved in the labour movement both in the private and public sectors since 1979. He is currently secretary general of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ).

Mr. Cadieux’s first exposure to the labour movement was as a student working evenings in a garage whose employees were members of the United Autoworkers Union (UAW), now called Unifor. In May 1983, he joined the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union (COPE) as a union advisor. He subsequently held various positions before becoming its executive director in 2004. Since 2007 he has also been national president and vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

In addition to representing the FTQ on the Comité consultatif du travail et de la main-d’œuvre (CCTM) since 2009, Mr. Cadieux sits on the boards of the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST) and the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail.

Serge Cadieux holds a Bachelor of Law from Université du Québec à Montréal and was admitted to the Barreau du Québec in 1992. He also holds a diploma in industrial relations and occupational health and safety from Université de Montréal.

With over 30 years’ experience in information technology, finance and international business, Christine Beaubien is a financial angel who invests in start-ups and provides strategic consulting to SMEs through her company, Groupe BSC.

Ms. Beaubien has held senior positions in a variety of organizations, including Anges Québec, Société générale de financement du Québec (SGF), Bombardier Capital, Export Development Canada (EDC), Desjardins and the Ministère des Affaires internationales du Québec. She also worked at Banque Paribas in Paris and at Versus, an e-commerce firm she co-owned.

Christine Beaubien serves on the boards of Héma-Québec, Oxfam-Québec, the Centre de Collaboration MiQro Innovation (C2MI) and Expansion Québec.

Holder of an MBA from HEC Montréal and a Bachelor of Computer Science from Université de Sherbrooke, Ms. Beaubien also holds the ICD.D designation with the McGill-Rotman Institute of Corporate Directors.

Denis Bolduc is president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) for Québec and a member of the CUPE National Executive Board. He is also a member of the Bureau of the FTQ and has served on the Board of Directors of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ since June 2016.

Holder of a DEC in Arts and Media Technology from Cégep de Jonquière, Mr. Bolduc worked as a radio broadcast journalist at CKCV-AM in Québec City from 1985 to 1986 and as a journalist at Journal de Québec from 1986 to 2011. He was editor of the free daily Média Matin Québec from 2007 to 2008.

Mr. Bolduc was president of CUPE-Québec Local 1450 from 2006 to 2011, president of CUPE-Québec’s Provincial Council for the Communications Sector (CPSC) from March to May 2011, and General Secretary of CUPE-Québec from May 2011 to June 2016.

Louise Chabot has been a member of the Executive Council of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec since June 2000 and was elected its president in 2012. In this role, she furthers such topics as bargaining, pay equity, the status of women, public policies, relations with other unions and international relations.

Ms. Chabot has held many union functions during her career, including founding president of the first nursing federation affiliated with a central labour body (the Union québécoise des infirmières et infirmiers) from 1988 to 2000 and president of the Syndicat professionnel des infirmières de Trois-Rivières from 1985 to 1988.

Ms. Chabot has served on various committees, including the Conseil de la famille et de l’enfance, the Comité Entraide, which she co-chaired, and the Comité consultatif des partenaires of the Commission de l’équité salariale. She was also a member of the Executive Council of the Centre international de solidarité ouvrière.

A nurse by profession, Ms. Chabot worked at Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis for ten years and in three hospitals in Trois-Rivières. She was her local’s steward at the Centre hospitalier régional de Trois-Rivières.

Louise Chabot holds a nursing diploma from cégep de Lévis-Lauzon and a law degree from Université du Québec à Montréal.

Active and respected in her profession for over 25 years, Michèle Colpron has 10 years of international business experience. She has been a board member of the Barreau du Québec’s Fonds d’assurance responsabilité professionnelle since 2012. She also chairs its Investment Committee and sits on its Audit Committee.

During her 12 years at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Ms. Colpron served as senior vice-president, Financial Management, ensuring sound management of the organization’s treasury and coordinating its financing activities on bond markets. In that role, she was also accountable for the Caisse’s performance. Prior to that, she oversaw operations as vice-president, Investment Administration. In a previous position as vice-president, Private Equity & Administration, Ms. Colpron was in charge of the Caisse’s private equity investments.

Prior to joining the Caisse, Ms. Colpron was with Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) and before that served as CFO at Standard Chartered Bank in Switzerland. Her foray into the international began as an audit manager for Ernst & Young in London and Hong Kong.

Michèle Colpron is a certified corporate director, duly accredited by Université Laval, and a member of the Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from HEC Montréal.

Having close to 35 years’ experience in the labour movement, Alain Croteau was appointed Québec Director by the Executive Board of United Steelworkers in December 2015.

A long-time steelworker, Mr. Croteau started his career as a coremaker at Mitchell Aerospace in 1978. He was elected for the first time as Unit Officer in 1983, and joined United Steelworkers on a full-time basis in 1994 as Vice-President of Local 8990. He sat on various committees, including the Recruitment Committee and the Advisory Committees on apprenticeship and qualifications for several trades in the metal sector.

Afterwards he became a union representative, then Coordinator of the North-Shore regional office, in Sept-Îles, and finally Assistant to the Québec Director in 2014, before stepping into the position of Québec Director.

Renaud Gagné is the Québec director of Unifor, Québec’s largest private sector union.

Mr. Gagné’s career in the labour movement began in 1984, when he became a union representative. Over the next 23 years, he built extensive bargaining experience in the pulp and paper and wood processing industries. In 2007, he was elected Vice-President (Quebec Region) of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. During his tenure, he was confronted with many situations that called for innovative solutions in order to protect jobs, working conditions and pension funds. He also steered complex dossiers involving companies subject to the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and made numerous representations before the Québec government during the reform of the province’s forestry regime. Upon the founding of Unifor in 2013, Mr. Gagné was appointed Assistant to the Quebec Director.

Mr. Gagné holds a mechanical manufacturing technician diploma. He has been a Board member of Solifor, a forestry asset management firm, since 2009.

Denis Labrèche has over 30 years’ experience in business valuation, financial disputes and M&As in various industries. As a partner at Ernst & Young from 1978 to 2011, he was involved in key mandates and transactions and was frequently called to give expert testimony. He was also tasked with many venture capital mandates for the Government of Québec, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Société générale de financement du Québec. He also acted as financial advisor to large organizations including Provigo, Métro, Rona, Bell Canada and the Canadian Red Cross.

Very active throughout his career, Mr. Labrèche has given speeches, led countless seminars on business valuation and financing and written articles on the topic for the business magazine Commerce and the La Presse newspaper.

Mr. Labrèche has served on the boards of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators and of Réseau Capital.

Denis Labrèche is a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV – 1984) and a Chartered Accountant who made the prestigious Honour Roll of the Chartered Accountants 1978 Uniform Exam (UFE).

A graduate of Université de Montréal (1984) with a degree in industrial relations, Kateri Lefebvre has been Executive Director of the Syndicat des employées et employés professionnels-les et de bureau (SEPB-Québec) since August 1, 2016. She is also Vice-President of the FTQ office.

Ms. Lefebvre has over 30 years of experience in labour relations. She has served as a labour consultant in various workplaces, both in the area of bargaining and defence of worker rights before decision-making bodies. In June 2016, she was elected National Secretary-Treasurer of COPE-SEPB, the national union with which SEPB-Québec is affiliated.

Ms. Nelson began her career as an aide in a Laval rehabilitation centre for physical and intellectual disabilities. Her interest in and concern for this clientele led her to become a specialized educator.  Over the years, she demonstrated a keen commitment to labour activism and was especially active on her local union executive board. She was president of her base unit for over 25 years and was elected member of two provincial public sector bargaining committees, serving as technical representative in two major files:  salary relativity and pay equity.  

In 1997 Ms. Nelson was hired by SQEES-298 member services as an advisor and in 2010 became a coach in the training department. Appointed secretary general in 2011, she assumed responsibility for the training department, political action committee and intercultural and mobilization committee, as well as management of administrative staff. In 2016 she was elected FTQ vice-president representing women in the FTQ.

Throughout her career, Sylvie Nelson has always been known for her activism and dedication to advancing the cause of women, particularly as regards their living standards and working conditions.

General Manager of FTQ-Construction since 2010, Yves Ouellet began his career in the construction industry in the 1980s as a carpenter-joiner.

He subsequently worked as a project manager for eight years. In 1997 he was elected president of the Fraternité nationale des poseurs de systèmes intérieurs, revêtements souples et parqueteurs-sableurs (local 2366). He also held the positions of financial secretary of FTQ-Construction between 2002 and 2005 and vice-president from 2008 to 2010.

Yves Ouellet is currently vice-president of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) and has been a Board member of the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST) since 2010. He also sits on the Benefits Committee of the Commission de la construction du Québec and has been vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Labour Congress since 2009.

Jean-Claude Scraire is an independant consultant in strategic development. Since 2002, he has worked for different organizations and businesses in Asia, Europe and Québec.

Mr. Scraire previously worked for 22 years at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec where he served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer from 1995 to 2002. He also held various positions in Québec public administration from 1974 to 1981, including at the Ministère de la Justice.

Committed to economic development and strongly believing in the importance of entrepreneurship while respecting the local communities, Jean-Claude Scraire has recently chaired the board of directors of Investissement Québec and the Fondation de l’entrepreneurship.

Member of the Barreau du Québec since 1970, Mr. Scraire is also a member of the Fondation de l’entrepreneurship and the University Club.