On June 17, our hearts were overwhelmed when we learned of the death of our friend and wrestling sister Lorraine Guay. We want to share our pain and above all our immense admiration for the woman who has inspired thousands of activists for 60 years. This remarkable woman is too little known to the general public. However, all of Quebec should be proud to count on activists of the caliber of Lorraine Guay: women, feminists, who are changing the world, one step at a time, relentlessly.
Lorraine was born in Verdun in 1943 into a modest background, of which she will always be proud. Very early on, she became involved in fights for social justice. From the local and international JEC to the Pointe-Saint-Charles community clinic and the Regroupement des ressources alternatives en santéALE; from El Salvador, where she spent several months as a nurse in guerrilla-controlled areas, to Nicaragua and Chile; from the Bread and Roses march (1995), where she led a contingent of walkers, to the World March of Women, of which she was a brilliant strategist and pedagogue; from the New Democracy Movement to coalitions in support of the Palestinian people, Lorraine never ceases to amaze us.
We can say at the same time that she was feminist, separatist, anti-capitalist, internationalist, anti-militarist, decolonial… In isolation, none of these qualifiers are enough to describe her, but, in all these movements, she brought her lucidity, the depth of its analysis, the search for solidarity and the firm determination to promote the active participation of those directly affected by injustice.
Lorraine will have campaigned everywhere with her awareness of being a woman, firmly believing that the march of women towards freedom must be collective and global. She began to define herself as a feminist when she saw it as a bridge between social struggles, defending the rights of all women in the world.
We cannot name all his commitments here. Any injustice affected him and aroused his desire to resist or retaliate. Not alone, never alone, always unifying. A formidable intellectual as much as a field worker, she put her word and her pen at the service of collective action. How many groups and people she rallied through her generous and well-argued pleas! So many shared struggles, new ideas cleared up, often alongside young women, whom she listened to as much as she could inspire them!
How not to be impressed by this woman with multiple talents and qualities? We must emphasize her simplicity, her unfailing uprightness, her unfailing respect for others and her incredible tenacity, she who participated in meetings until very recently. We must also speak of her joy of living, of the pleasure she took in sharing wine and good meals, of her love of poetry. From her physical energy too, she who slept little and who, at the age of 75, still went to various appointments by bicycle.
Convinced that it is by questioning that one advances, she had doubted her intellectual posture: to resist the certainties that confine herself, to open up to others, to welcome the changes in the world and to confront her positions there. She refused to adhere to any ideology or political party, wanting to keep all her ability to walk. Driven by indignation, she was a “radical sage.”
She was a pro-independence until the end, co-editing the book A Quebec country. The YES of women (Rubbish, 2018). She was also an unfailing ally of the Aboriginal nations. And a fighter against all discrimination. She wasn’t afraid to name the problems: the term systemic racism struck her as apt. Through the practice of debate, she sought ways of passage, desirable consensuses, the possibility of joint action.
Democrat through and through, she campaigned for a proportional voting system, but also for women to obtain the place and recognition they deserve in politics. Beyond representative democracy, it has sought and experimented with strategies of participatory democracy. In community circles, he was recognized for his remarkable ability to bring ideas, projects, to explain, to mobilize.
Above all, his tenacity and courage inspired us. In Who are we to be discouraged? a work developed with Pascale Dufour (Écosociété, 2019), Lorraine speaks with disarming frankness about her struggles, her doubts, her hopes. She had something of the great Madeleine Parent, trade unionist and feminist who died in 2012: this absolute conviction that we have no right to let go, whatever the period in which we live.
Lorraine liked to quote FS Fitzgerald: “You have to be convinced that things are hopeless, but be determined to change them anyway. The hope that it breathed into us makes it precious in our eyes since sometimes, in the face of the setbacks of history, we lack breath, precisely. His legacy is there: to persevere even when things are going badly, despite the war, despite the despairing refusal of economic and political leaders to resolutely face climate change, despite trampled rights, in the face of rising inequalities and intolerance, persevere for the day when we can move forward again.
This is what the life and actions of Lorraine Guay teach us. This is what softens our pain and will animate us, at the heart of the struggles that we will continue.
* The co-signers:
Michèle Asselin, activist, feminist and pacifist, director of the Quebec Association of International Cooperation Organizations
Gisèle Bourret, feminist activist, long active in the Fédération des femmes du Québec and the CSQ
Nancy Burrows, Bread and Roses activist, former World March of Women worker
Claudette Carbonneau, former president of the CSN and OUI Québec
Nicole Caron, feminist, anti-racist, activist
Emilia Castro, internationalist feminist of the World March of Women
Céline Cyr, mental health and rights activist, Bumper Committee, feminist
· Ana María Seghezzo D’Urbano, activist in international solidarity and in the women’s movement
Françoise David, feminist activist and former MP
Louise Desmarais, feminist activist for the right to abortion
· Pascale Dufour, Professor, Political Science, University of Montreal and Director of the Political Action and Democracy Research Collective (CAPED)
Zahia El-Masri, feminist activist for Palestine, vice-president of the Canadian-Palestinian Foundation of Quebec
Ariane Émond, feminist and animator, sponsor of the white poppy campaign
· Élisabeth Garant, Executive Director of the Center justice et foi and of the magazine Relations.
· Yara El-Ghadban, Palestinian novelist and anthropologist, editor of Mémoire d’encrier and president of the Diversity Space
Élisabeth Germain, activist at the Quebec Women’s Federation
Lise Gervais, activist, former coordinator of Relais-femmes
Hélène Gobeil, feminist and activist, member of the Collectif Échec à la guerre
Marjolaine Goudreau, activist for a free Palestine, president of RÉCIFS (for the defense of free psychosocial services)
· Vivian Labrie, independent researcher associated with IRIS (Institute for socio-economic research and information) and member of the ERASME research team
· Nicole Lacelle, feminist activist, president of assemblies
Diane Lamoureux, author and feminist activist, professor emeritus, Université Laval
Anne Latendresse, feminist activist, in solidarity with Palestine, professor of geography, UQAM
· Marie Leclerc, co-author of the book Le Oui des femmes, ex-coordinator of the Advisory Committee for Autonomous Community Action (now RQ-ACA)
Avigaël Lévy, activist at the BDS-Québec Coalition, member of Independent Jewish Voices
· Suzanne Loiselle, member of the Échec à la guerre and Sauvons le Mont-Carmel collectives
Chantal Locat, feminist activist and committed artist
Marlihan Lopez, Afro-feminist activist
· Manon Massé, feminist activist, ecologist and deputy spokesperson for Québec solidaire
· Diane Matte, ex-coordinator of the Bread and Roses march and of the International Secretariat of the World March of Women
Maguy Métellus, Afro-feminist activist, host and speaker, member of the BDS-Quebec Coalition and the April 3 Committee of Montreal/Haiti
Viviane Michel, former president of Quebec Native Women
Francine Néméh, international solidarity activist
Amélie Nguyen, coordinator of the International Center for Workers’ Solidarity (CISO)
Miriam Nobre, ex-international coordinator of the World March of Women, Brazil
· Anne Pasquier, feminist activist, ex-coordinator of the Table of Women’s Groups of Montreal, member of the regional committee for the World March of Women in Montreal
Alexandra Pierre, feminist activist, president of the League of Rights and Freedoms
· Myrlande Pierre, sociologist of anti-racism and feminist, representative of the Montreal delegation to the Estates General on the reform of democratic institutions
Pierrette Richard, head of Prize II, member of the Regroupement des ressources alternatives en santéALE du Québec
Julie Raby, activist, leader of the Bread and Roses march, former member of the ERASME research team
Judy Rebick, feminist activist, journalist, editor, Toronto
· Mercedez Roberge, feminist activist, coordinator of the Table of provincial groups of community and voluntary organizations and former president of the New Democracy Movement
· Lourdes Rodriguez Del Barrio, Full Professor, University of Montreal, Scientific Director of the Mental Health Research and Action Team and of the International University and Community Alliance Mental Health and Citizenship
Michèle Rouleau, activist, former president of Quebec Native Women, sponsor of the Bread and Roses march