Robert Dean, second from left, is pictured with Claude Blanchet, Gaétan Morin and Jean-Guy Frenette. | Photo: Fonds de solidarité FTQ
Robert Dean, BA 61, a former minister in the Parti Québécois (PQ) governments of René Lévesque and Pierre-Marc Johnson, died on February 4.
He was 93.
A long-time supporter of Quebec’s labour movement, Dean was widely regarded as an eloquent champion for those beginning to find their voice in the wake of the province’s Quiet Revolution.
As a Member of the National Assembly of Quebec (MNA), Dean sponsored the creation of the Fonds de Solidarité FTQ (Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec) in 1983. The province’s largest development capital fund reported net assets of $13.8 billion in June 2020.
“I am a person of conviction who tries to turn my beliefs into reality,” Dean, a graduate of Sir George Williams University, one of Concordia’s founding institutions, once said. “I am not a coward and I don’t surrender, and I always try to congratulate and value those whom I come into contact with.”
“Like many graduates of Sir George at the time, Robert Dean came from a very modest background but made a profound impact on society as a passionate advocate for change,” eulogized Concordia President Graham Carr.
Guy Lachapelle, a professor at Concordia’s Department of Political Science, said what struck him about Dean was his empathy.
“He had a huge heart and a drive for equality in society,” Lachapelle recalled. “He continued to work all his life in the spirit of the Quiet Revolution, pushing for political and cultural change. And he appreciated his Concordia education.”
Denis Bolduc, the FTQ’s general secretary, said in a statement: “We can only be grateful to this man of heart and action who fought many battles on behalf of workers.”
A union man
Robert Dean was born in Montreal on October 26, 1927. The son of a hotel worker and homemaker, he grew up with an acute sense of how perilous job security could be without the refuge of organized labour.
He became a trade unionist in 1960, as a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Drummondville.
When the Government of Quebec nationalized Hydro-Québec in 1962, Dean was there to help create 24 bargaining units.
As the provincial director of the UAW, he led a 13-week strike to make French the official language of the General Motors plant in Sainte-Thérèse.
In 1974, while serving as a vice-president of the FTQ, Dean was involved in one of the province’s most historic union battles: the violent strike at United Aircraft in Longueuil, which lasted 20 months and, three years later, spurred a ban on strike-breakers that was later enshrined in Quebec’s Labour Code.
Dean ran for the PQ in 1981 — in the mostly francophone riding of Prévost in the Laurentian region north of Montreal. He became one of only two anglophones in then-premier René Lévesque’s caucus.
On March 5, 1984, he was appointed minister of revenue; during a cabinet shuffle the following December, he was named minister of employment and consultation.
After he lost his seat in the 1985 general election, Dean rejoined the UAW and retired four years later.
“They say that to change the world, you have to change yourself,” Dean said in a 2012 interview. “This is what I try to do and what I try to convince others to do.”
Dean is survived by his children, Marc, Carole and Denis (Josée Racicot), and grandchildren Charles, Jean-Antoine et Valéria.
