Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Honourable senators, I rise to pay tribute to Senator Dagenais on behalf of the independent senators of the Progressive Senate Group.
Our colleague is the son of a police officer and served as a member of the Sûreté du Québec for 39 years. Law and order go hand in hand in the Dagenais family.
He started out as a patrol officer in 1972 in Rawdon and quickly moved on to representing his colleagues, which is not surprising given his degree in human resources. In 1996, he became the vice-president of finance of the Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec and later replaced Tony Cannavino as president in 2004.
When he was called upon to negotiate collective agreements, my friend Jacques Dupuis, the then minister of public safety, described Senator Dagenais as a man of imposing stature, which is true, and a tenacious union leader.
In 2011, Jean-Guy left the union to run as a Conservative candidate under Prime Minister Harper, unlike his friend Cannavino, who was a Liberal Party supporter. Jean-Guy was attracted by the law-and-order agenda.
The door to the House of Commons may not have opened, but the door to the Senate did in January 2012.
What set him apart in the Senate was his approach to politics. As president of the association, he was in favour of maintaining the gun registry, but, as a senator, he was in favour of abolishing it.
Yesterday, in an interview, our colleague mentioned that one of his achievements was getting a bill promoting union financial transparency passed despite opposition from the unions.
What I remember most about our warm and friendly colleague is that he was always a man of strong opinions. In 2013, an NDP MP sent her constituents a flyer in which she suggested abolishing the Senate. In response, he wrote an open letter that began, “What a rag!”
He went on to say:
As an NDP MP who would probably never have been elected if not for Quebecers’ spontaneous outpouring of sympathy for Jack Layton . . . you don’t know enough about constitutional matters to be making such allegations. There is a well-stocked library on the subject at your disposal in Parliament. I suggest you make use of it.
In November 2019, he broke ranks with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and his Senate leader and announced that he was joining the Canadian Senators Group.
In September 2022, armed with a pair of scissors, he cut up his Conservative Party membership card and compared Pierre Poilievre to Donald Trump. His statements are always punchy.
To be fair to our colleague, his strong opinions spare no one, especially not Prime Minister Trudeau and Senator Gold.
My dear Jean-Guy, I wish you and Danielle all the best for the future. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, hear or read more of your punchy comments in the media weeks or months from now.
Happy retirement.