{"id":336011,"date":"2025-12-10T04:05:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T04:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/336011\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T04:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T04:05:32","slug":"activist-rene-dallaire-was-an-articulate-voice-for-quebecs-disabled-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/336011\/","title":{"rendered":"Activist Ren\u00e9 Dallaire was an articulate voice for Quebec\u2019s disabled community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Dallaire receiving the Ordre National du Qu\u00e9bec in 2017.Supplied<\/p>\n

In 1970, a week before his 19th birthday, Ren\u00e9 Dallaire was competing at a downhill ski event at Mont Vid\u00e9o, a ski centre near his hometown of Rouyn-Noranda, Que.<\/p>\n

He missed a turn and veered into the woods, the hard snow projecting him forward at high speed until he hit a tree. When help came, the first thing he said was, \u201cI can\u2019t feel my arms or legs.\u201d As his sister Suzanne Dallaire later recalled, that incident sealed the course for the rest of Mr. Dallaire\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Rushed to hospital in Montreal, he was paralyzed from the neck down; the doctors gave him three days to live. But with boundless support from family and friends and huge dollops of personal grit, Mr. Dallaire proved the doctors wrong and lived more than 20,000 days longer, leading an extraordinary life of professional success and volunteer activism. He was an articulate voice for Quebec\u2019s disabled community and founder of the Quebec Association for Adaptive Sailing, known by its French acronym, AQVA.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dallaire died in Montreal on Oct. 25 at the age of 74 from complications of over 50 years of wheelchair use.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was inspiring,\u201d said Paula Stone, vice-president at AQVA. An occupational therapist, she began working with Mr. Dallaire as a fellow volunteer in the 1990s, helping to organize four iterations of the Mobility Cup, the national adaptive sailing event, in Montreal over the past 25 years. \u201cHe was hardworking and very sociable, with lots of determination. He was a visionary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Dallaire was introduced to adaptive sailing in 1994 by Sam Sullivan, a fellow tetraplegic who went on to serve as mayor of Vancouver. Mr. Sullivan developed the sport and helped design the Martin 16, a custom sailboat for competitors with special needs. Mr. Dallaire was immediately hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been disabled for many years,\u201d Mr. Dallaire told an interviewer in the summer of 2025, after hosting the Mobility Cup at AQVA\u2019s home base, Pointe Claire Yacht Club, on the Island of Montreal. \u201cWhen I began sailing in 1994, I realized that there was a sport \u2026 where I could compete and feel at the same level as anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

His challenge was particularly tough. A paraplegic with use of their arms can use a joy stick to control the rudder or the sails on an adapted boat. But with no control of his limbs, Mr. Dallaire had to use his mouth to skipper the boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two straws in my mouth. One controls the rudder. If I sip, it will bring the rudder one way and if I puff, it will go the other way,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe same with the sail. I puff and the sails go out and I bring the sails in by sipping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Dallaire with companion sailor Kat Walker.Trevor Awalt\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Dallaire was born on March 6, 1951 in Rouyn-Noranda, the fifth of seven children (one of whom was a cousin brought up by the family) of Louis-Philippe Dallaire, a businessman and owner of a local dairy, and his wife Yvette Champagne.<\/p>\n

As a child, Ren\u00e9 was smart and curious but got bored easily so his teacher would let him study the encyclopedia after he finished his classroom work. He was in the cadets and loved basketball, hockey and especially skiing.<\/p>\n

The accident was traumatic for the whole family. After it happened, Ren\u00e9\u2019s parents moved to Montreal for five months to remain at their son\u2019s bedside. The early weeks were particularly difficult. Ren\u00e9 became despondent and stopped eating but his parents convinced him that his intellect was what counted and that life was still worth living.<\/p>\n

After five months in Montreal, Ren\u00e9 moved back to Rouyn-Noranda and eventually resumed his studies at a local CEGEP or junior college. His father bought an old Renault, had the roof removed, and turned it into a customized para-transport vehicle. At the college building in Rouyn-Noranda, there was no elevator so four of Ren\u00e9\u2019s fellow students would lift him in his wheelchair up the stairs to class.<\/p>\n

He continued his studies in Montreal at the \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes Commerciales (now HEC Montreal), earning a business degree and then an MBA from University of Sherbrooke. He went on to become a chartered accountant, despite huge challenges. At his accounting exams, a fellow student helped to transcribe Mr. Dallaire\u2019s answers but there was also an invigilator around to make sure he didn\u2019t cheat.<\/p>\n

After becoming a CPA, Mr. Dallaire eventually became director of finance at the Institut de R\u00e9adaptation de Montr\u00e9al, a rehabilitation centre. He retired in his early 50s.<\/p>\n

For Jean-Marc Dallaire, Ren\u00e9\u2019s nephew and godson, Uncle Ren\u00e9 was always a major presence in his life, \u201cthe glue\u201d that kept the extended Dallaire family together as it scattered across Quebec from its hometown in the Abitibi region. He was the instigator of family events and had a charismatic personality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always my cool uncle,\u201d Jean-Marc told The Globe and Mail. Ren\u00e9 was an early adopter of technology to help with his mobility issues, and Jean-Marc remembers his uncle doing \u201cwheelies\u201d with his power wheelchair. He was the first with new computers and benefitted hugely from the advent of voice recognition software, which meant he could be more productive without being dependent on others.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Dallaire was introduced to adaptive sailing in 1994 by Sam Sullivan, a fellow tetraplegic who went on to serve as mayor of Vancouver.Luka Bartulovic\/AQVA<\/p>\n

In 2022, after a series of personal difficulties, Mr. Dallaire found himself sent to a long-term care facility. He rebelled and with the help of supporters mounted a successful campaign to allow him to live in his own home, with assistance from caregivers 24 hours a day, paid for by the Quebec government.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an exceptional man of great integrity,\u201d said Jonathan Marchand, president of Coop Assist, a Quebec non-profit where Mr. Dallaire served on the board. \u201cRen\u00e9 believed deeply in our mission in favour of autonomy without compromise.\u201d Mr. Marchand said that Mr. Dallaire also opposed the extension of medical assistance in dying (MAID) to disabled individuals, arguing that more resources need to be dedicated to allow people with disabilities to live rather than encouraging them to end their lives.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dallaire also was active in Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Logique, a non-profit that built Quebec\u2019s first universally accessible housing project, and he was on several boards.<\/p>\n

He seldom took no for an answer. When the Mobility Cup was held in North Sydney, N.S., in 2022, Mr. Dallaire realized that the small plane he was due to fly on wouldn\u2019t be able to accommodate his motorized wheelchair in its baggage hold. It was too big.<\/p>\n

So he got in touch with the technician who serviced the chair and had him make a video explaining how the chair could be dismantled to have it fit into the hold. He presented the video at the airport and ground staff managed to take apart the wheelchair, load it onto the plane and reassemble it upon arrival.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dallaire was named to the Ordre national du Qu\u00e9bec in 2017 and to the Order of Montreal in 2023. He was also a Fellow of CPA-Quebec, the provincial association of chartered professional accountants.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dallaire leaves his sisters, Gis\u00e8le, Marielle, Ghislaine and Suzanne; brother, Ga\u00e9tan; cousin, Jacques Rousseau; nieces and nephews; and his wife, Sara Cheung-Dallaire.<\/p>\n

Despite the extraordinary challenges Mr. Dallaire faced during his life, including periodic hospital stays and excruciating pain caused by bed sores, Jean-Marc said his uncle maintained his upbeat approach to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 52 years that I knew him,\u201d Jean-Marc said, \u201cI never heard him once complain.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ren\u00e9 Dallaire receiving the Ordre National du Qu\u00e9bec in 2017.Supplied In 1970, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,2922,2385,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-336011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-noastack","12":"tag-obituary","13":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}