Marie-Paule Charette-Poulin was president of the Liberal Party of Canada and a senator for 20 years, and at 80, she’s still working.
At 80, Marie-Paule Charette-Poulin remains a marvel of initiative and energy, still offering her services to others with competence, good will and grace. This retired senator and former president of the Liberal Party of Canada is still serving as the Parliamentarianin-residence of Saint Paul University in Ottawa. She is even pursuing a PhD in canon law in her spare time.
Obviously, she takes no timing cues from the calendar. “I don’t care how old you are,” she said in a recent interview. “If you want to feel you’ve earned your place in the world, part of your life must be concerned with serving others. This remains true, whether you’re six or 80.” Her resumé is of such daunting length that one can only skim the highlights.
For 20 years, she was a broadcast executive with the CBC, serving as vice president, serially, of several portfolios, including corporate secretary to the board of governors. Even before that, working as founding director of RadioCanada’s French services in Northern Ontario, she helped launch CBON radio in Sudbury, a French-language service with more than 30 retransmission antennas in Northern Ontario. In 1995, former prime minister Jean Chrétien appointed her to the Senate, where she served for two decades. Among her satisfactions from her Senate years was her work in establishing National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21, Vimy Ridge Day on April 9 and Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.
She left the Senate in 2015, but has remained busy since with service on numerous committees and boards. Two years ago, she was appointed Parliamentarian-in-residence at Saint Paul University, where much of her time has been devoted to establishing partnerships with universities around the world, including Mexico, France and Japan. “That’s the beginning of what I do, but I do a bit of everything,” Charette-Poulin says, “including windows.”
She is a kind but frank interlocutor, in every way an obvious people person. Charette-Poulin was born in Sudbury in 1945 to parents who early on instilled in her the importance of being of service to others. Her father, Alphonse Charette, had a business selling feed and seed to farmers. Her mother, Lucille Ménard, was a school teacher. Both parents served on various committees in the city as part of a good citizen’s duty.
Charette-Poulin well remembers a resolve that her father had that proved formative for her. “He believed that francophones should be able to be born, study, do business and die in French. And I think, since his time, a great deal of that — not all — has been achieved.” That torch, which she took up implicitly, was expressed clearly throughout her career, especially in her work to establish a francophone radio service in Northern Ontario.
Too numerous to list them all, her honours include the Prix Marcel Blouin for the best radio morning program in Canada in 1983, an honorary doctorate of law degree from Laurentian University, the insignia of “Officier de l’Ordre national de la Legion d’Honneur de la France,” and the Award of the Rising Sun from the government of Japan. A biography titled She Dared to Succeed was written about her life by journalist Fred Langan.
She has been a member of the National Association of Federal Retirees for three decades and praises the association’s work. “I could not have higher admiration for an organization that keeps people connected and represents the members’ interests so well to governments.” She is married to portrait artist Bernard A. Poulin and has two adult daughters. Still in harness, she senses broad horizons. “You know, finishing that doctoral degree may take me years, but I’ll finish it even if it takes me till I’m 90.” And the betting is, she will.