The creation of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ 40 years ago was to change the course of history in Québec. But she started by stopping time.
Officially, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ was created on June 23, 1983, but that’s not entirely accurate. Engaged in a final sprint with a view to the adoption of its constitutive act, the deputies of the National Assembly of Quebec realized that day that they would not get there before the twelve stroke of midnight and before they were forced to suspend work for the summer.
“They agreed to stop the clock, remembers Claude Blanchet, the Fund’s first big boss. I no longer remember exactly how long it was midnight minus one on the dials of the National Assembly, that June 23. I would say at least a good hour. »
The anecdote testifies to the high level of support from elected officials for the project. It must be said that it was the economic crisis, with an average unemployment rate of almost 14% and its procession of business closures. Both the PQ government of René Lévesque and the Liberal opposition were ready to try anything to help the Quebec economy rebound, including supporting, through tax deductions and a $10 million start-up loan, the birth of a new kind of development fund. investment from the trade unions and intended primarily for job creation and support for SMEs.
The “patent to Louis Laberge”
This great enthusiasm for what some will call “Louis Laberge’s patent” — named after the president of the Fédération des Travailleurs du Québec (FTQ) and main defender of the project — was not, however, shared by everyone. , recalled Louis Fournier in a history of the Fonds FTQ in 1991.
In the business world, many voices saw it as an unholy project that would lead, at best, to an embarrassing financial failure and, at worst, to the imposition of a kind of co-management on companies that were reckless to accept money from the Fund. Many union voices were also opposed to the idea, seeing in it an impossible cooperation with capitalism, even a capitulation.
“For the FTQ, it was a major ideological shift after a decade of saying that we wanted to break the system,” said Claude Blanchet, who had helped develop the project before becoming the Fund’s first president and CEO. at 38, who remained so until 1997. “It was also very innovative, because there was nothing like it in the world. »
The closest we had seen so far were workers who invested in their own business, at the risk of losing everything in the event of bankruptcy, employment and savings, or even an investment fund in Sweden financed from corporate profits. With the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, it was a question of convincing workers to invest part of their retirement savings in exchange for generous tax deductions, returns that we hoped to be at the rendezvous and the feeling of participating in the development economy of Quebec.
“It took time, remembers Claude Blanchet. There weren’t many brave people at the beginning. It was not a question of convincing a few big investors, but thousands of ordinary workers to put in $10 a week. And when you have few funds, you don’t have a lot of investment opportunities either or a lot of credibility with companies. »
It must be said that at the time, half of Quebecers had less than $2,000 in savings and a quarter had nothing at all. Venture capital to help start up promising companies was also almost non-existent at the time, recalls Claude Blanchet. “The success of the Fund convinced the CSN to get involved in its turn with Fondaction. Very cautious until then, Desjardins also decided to embark. »
Visionary and of his time
“When you look at it in retrospect, you say to yourself that it took a lot of vision and audacity,” says, of the creation of the Fund in the 1980s, Janie Béïque, who became the first woman to lead it as as President and CEO two years ago. By daring to put forward not only financial return, but also “societal return”, “we were a precursor of responsible investment. »
Last November, the Fund had more than 750,000 shareholders and had net assets approaching 18 billion invested in particular in more than 3,600 companies representing nearly 300,000 jobs.
The Fund’s greatest success in 40 years cannot be measured in the number of jobs, thinks Janie Béïque. It is rather to have been there and to have intervened each time workers, businesses and the economy of Quebec encountered difficulties or were offered a new chance for development.
She is thinking, of course, of the economic crisis of the early 1980s, but also when it was necessary to structure the venture capital industry, when the technology bubble burst at the beginning of the year 2000, when it was necessary reinvent Quebec’s biotechnology sector after the mass departure of pharmaceutical companies or when we wanted to relaunch the timber and mining sectors.
“It’s not always done spectacularly. And since we are more hands-on people and we never work alone, we are perhaps given less credit for it. »
Another great success of the Fund is to have helped to build better mutual understanding and better cooperation between workers, employers and governments, believes Claude Blanchet. Through its economic training programs for workers, the Fund has helped them better understand the reality of businesses. But by entering the shareholders and the boards of these same companies, the Fund has also given workers and their views a stronger voice.
“I think we can talk about a revolution. In the 1970s, Quebec was the champion of strikes and lockouts in Canada, he recalls. The situation was completely reversed afterwards. It has become the least unequal society, where there is the greatest cohesion in North America. »
Today’s challenges
Well in its time, the Fund wants to tackle three major challenges as a priority in the coming years, says Janie Béïque. The first will be intergenerational inequities, particularly in terms of retirement savings among the most modest workers. “In Quebec, we create the poorest retirees in Canada. »
The Fund also wishes to do its part in addressing the problem of access to housing. And as long as he is in the real estate sector, he would also like to accelerate the development of a sustainable construction sector there.
Environmental and sustainable development challenges will obviously be central in the coming years, continues the head of the Fund, to the point where we intend to increase its total assets to 12 billion within five years.
“To contribute to the sustainable development of a society, you have to have values and stick to them because it pays off. But in a world where everything is changing, the only way to succeed in meeting the challenges that await us will be for all of us to get involved, not just the Fund or the governments, but the citizens, too. It will take everyone’s commitment. »