Even if we know that we shouldn’t trust appearances, it’s a reflex that’s quite difficult to silence. I experienced it during my meeting with Sister Marie-Paule Lebel. I couldn’t help but be constantly amazed by the abysmal contrast between the gentleness she exuded and the strength she demonstrated, whether in court, in the face of a voracious property owner or in the midst of genocide. in Rwanda.
Her pastel blue gaze is full of tenderness. Her soothing voice makes her seem very shy. However, Marie-Paule Lebel is not the type to let herself be walked on. Confrontation never scared him, neither did machetes.
Unshakeable, at 84 years old she continues to lead battles and defend her principles. She does not hesitate, moreover, to criticize the government which she finds “insensitive” in the face of the housing crisis which “deteriorates the social fabric”.
“Does everyone have to be in the streets for the CAQ to wake up? “, she asks herself.
The theme touches her personally, since the tireless octogenarian is one of the tenants of the Mont-Carmel seniors’ residence, in Montreal, who fought to avoid eviction after a change of ownership. She did not hesitate for two seconds to take on this fight. “It’s a question of justice. The owner had agreed that it would remain an RPA on a paper signed before a notary. And then on January 31, we received an eviction notice. We said to ourselves: “That’s not okay!” »
This high-profile case brought sister helper to meet, in her apartment, the Minister of Housing France-Élaine Duranceau, the Minister of Seniors Sonia Bélanger and Manon Massé, of Québec solidaire. This shows how the group’s determination made it possible to bring the debate on the fate of seniors in particular and tenants in general into the public space. With another activist, Marie-Paule Lebel was even invited to Everybody talks about itin spring 2023. All this, without the help of expensive public relations experts.
In the 1970s, Marie-Paule Lebel was in the opposite position. A project by his religious community had aroused the ire of the neighborhood, who turned to the courts to block it.
The nuns wanted to welcome, within their walls, men who were released from prison to help them reintegrate into society. Marie-Paule Lebel was chosen to defend the project before the City and the judge, thanks to her qualities as a unifier, assumes the former leader of a group of guides.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Marie-Paule Lebel with our columnist
They had strategies, they wanted to buy the house. They made all kinds of fuss. The lawyer told me that I would make a good lawyer because I found the right words.
Marie-Paule Lebel
After six or seven years, the Helping Sisters won across the board.
Trained as a nurse, Marie-Paule Lebel then worked in a medical clinic in Pointe-Saint-Charles. The experience was short-lived. Her keen interest in the international world brought her to Rwanda where she quickly learned the language, Kinyarwanda. In 1984, she abandoned her medical equipment to become the director of a “social action school” training adolescent girls, both in sociology and agriculture. Finding funds and food poses daily challenges. Ethnic tensions between Hutus and Tutsis prove difficult to manage. “I felt a little innocent for having accepted…”
But the worst is coming. Ten years later, Marie-Paule Lebel found herself in the middle of the genocide, surrounded by students and teachers from both camps. “Luckily it broke out during the Easter holidays. The students were not there…” She measures the extent of the drama that is being played out by going to look, with a colleague, for a car parked near a church where 3,000 people are crowded together, their house having been burned, in many places. cases.
In principle, places of worship, you don’t touch that. We came back, we went to see a military friend, we told him that we had to defend people in danger. He told us that we were in violation, that it was night, that there was a curfew, that we had to enter our house. The next morning it was learned that all 3,000 people had been killed.
Marie-Paule Lebel
Sister Lebel then decides to go to Burundi, where she helps Tutsis who want to save their skin to leave Rwanda. Thanks to her car and her white skin, she manages to obtain passports, rights of passage, plane tickets.
In her pockets, she carries medicine and batteries for flashlights that she plans to give to those who would block her path. “But they asked us for medals and rosaries, imagine… It’s incredible. They had rosaries in their necks, then machetes in their hands. It’s crazy, huh? We never put that in our pockets. They had lost all sense of humanity. »
Where was your god at that time? I dared to ask him. “In all the people who collaborated to save people. »
More than a year after the start of the genocide, she managed to reopen her school and even double the number of students. But the end of his years in Rwanda is approaching. One day, she is informed that she will be the next person murdered. “I knew too much. » Most of us would have fled quickly. Not her.
“It didn’t shake me too much at the time. But at some point I saw signs. For example, in the military newspaper, they ridiculed me, they compared me to a Hutu bishop. At this point you say “well, that’s enough”. » Five months later, she returned to Quebec and returned to her old love, working as a nurse, in a CHSLD in Montreal.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Marie-Paule Lebel
When she sees, today, the mobility that the government requires of nurses, Marie-Paule Lebel becomes more animated than at any other time during our interview. She recounts how she experienced a forced change of floor during a shift.
“Only one evening, I understood the entire catastrophe of the health system. You need to know how a person takes their medication. Do I crush them? Do I put them in applesauce? Should I get some yogurt? Do I make the person drink first? After ? When you have 32 on your floor like that…”
What we’re asking of nurses currently doesn’t make sense, we’re putting people’s lives in danger. Give them permanent positions, leave them in the same departments. How come the government doesn’t understand this?
Marie-Paule Lebel
Marie-Paule Lebel entered religion to take care of the widow and the orphan, to have the opportunity to see the world and make a difference, for “the freedom of action and thought” that this role would provide him.
Today, when she looks in the rearview mirror, she finds that she had a “beautiful full life, a life full of meaning”.
Questionnaire without filter
Me and coffee: A good coffee in the morning helps me start the day. You need one.
The last time I cried: When Christiane, a committed feminist nun, died some time ago. I’m not a crybaby.
People (living or dead) with whom I would like to share a meal: Manon Massé, members of my family, Beethoven. Her 9e Symphony brings me a lot to the interior.
What irritates me the most: That society is losing meaning, losing humanity in favor of wealth and power. I find it terrible, trying.
Qualities I look for in others: Respect, friendliness, resilience, combativeness too. I like people who stand up and want to live.
Who is Marie-Paule Lebel?
- Marie-Paule Lebel was born in 1939 in Saint-Félix-de-Kingsey, south of Drummondville.
- At the age of 21, she joined the Helping Sisters in Granby.
- She completed her classical course and obtained a nursing diploma.
- From 1979 to 1998, she lived in Rwanda where she worked as a nurse and school principal.
- You can see it in the documentary Ousted: the elders strike backby journalist Noémi Mercier, on the legal saga surrounding the Mont-Carmel RPA.