A second career: volunteering

September 19, 2019
Pierre Cousineau
Pierre Cousineau

 

Pierre Cousineau says he enjoyed his 32-year career as a senior-level bureaucrat with the federal government in Ottawa. But he has loved using the managerial skills he honed as a public servant for the benefit of the many volunteer groups he’s been involved with since he retired in 1994.

“Volunteering is my way of giving back,” says Cousineau, a member and volunteer with the Quebec branch of the National Association of Federal Retirees and a leading volunteer advocate and adviser on senior issues in la belle province.

He recently ended years-long terms as both president of the Outaouais Table of Consultation for Seniors and Retirees — a regional forum that promotes awareness and support for seniors’ issues in Quebec — and vice-president of the Quebec Conference of Regional Tables of Consultation of Seniors.

Cousineau’s volunteerism with those and other groups earned him one of the three Federal Retirees‘ national volunteer recognition awards last year. In many ways the award brought Cousineau’s life full circle. Born and raised in downtown Hull, close to the raucous bars that made the city famous in the post-war years, he went to high school and university in Ottawa, studying commerce for three years at the University of Ottawa, but leaving before he graduated.

After a short stint with Household Finance in Montreal — his only job outside the National Capital Region — Cousineau transferred back to the Ottawa area where he later landed a job in the accounting department of the National Arts Centre. “I joined a couple years after it opened,” Cousineau recalls about his first position in the federal public service. “Several employees had left to work for the Montreal Olympics so they were hiring.”

In the years that followed, Cousineau held increasingly senior managerial positions for the federal government in Ottawa, particularly with the old Department of Health and Welfare and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, from which he retired.

His stints at Health and Welfare included chief of staff for the ADM of the Medical Services Branch, which oversees roughly 40 Canadian physicians who work in embassies around the world (a position that required him to work closely with External Affairs) and director of administration services. “I was like an administration officer,” says Cousineau. “Everyone involved in personnel, finance, and accruement reported to me.”

Even before he took a retirement cash-out under austerity-minded prime minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government, Cousineau was already giving time to volunteer causes. It began with helping to plan and run summer camping outings with the Boy Scouts, which his late son Alain-Patrice joined as a boy. Years later, when Cousineau’s widowed mother contracted Alzheimer’s — a disease she suffered from for 10 long years — he became an active member of the Alzheimer Society in Quebec’s Outaouais region.

During the same period, he joined — and later became president of — the regional branch of the Quebec condo owners’ association, where he worked to help improve contractual conditions of condo fees.

He also made a memorable entry into the Outaouais branch of the Association. “I went to the annual general meeting and there was a call in the room for volunteers for the board — if not the branch would cease operations,” says Cousineau. “I walked out of my first meeting as the elected vice-president.”

After serving nearly a decade on the Outaouais board, including the past five as president, Cousineau recently stepped down from that executive position as well as others with other regional and provincial seniors’ groups.

An avid stamp collector and lifelong fan of the Gatineau (formerly Hull) Olympiques major junior ice hockey team, which last year honoured him at centre ice for being a season-ticket holder for 44 consecutive years, Cousineau, now 76, says he plans to spend more time with Lise, his wife of 55 years.

“I’ll still keep my hand in some volunteer work, which I really enjoy,” says Cousineau. “Volunteering has been like a second career for me, but one from the heart.” 
 

This article appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of our in-house magazine, Sage. Please download the full issue and peruse our back issues!