Quebec
Two New Memorials Honour Fallen Workers
In the past year, Quebec workers have erected two new memorials to honour the memory of workers who were killed on the job.
La Romaine Construction Site, Minganie
On October 2025, a memorial was erected in Minganie, a municipality on the North Shore, to pay tribute to eight workers killed during the design phase and construction of the Romaine hydroelectric project. This initiative was spearheaded by four former workers on the project.
The memorial has bronze plaques bearing the names of those killed: Jean-Yves Oaks, Dany Burgess, and Germain Vaillant, who died on September 1, 1975, in a plane crash during technical surveys. There is also Alexandre Tanguay, who died in 1974. During the construction phase, which began in 2009, four workers lost their lives: Gaétan Saucier (February 9, 2010), Steeve Barriault (March 11, 2015), Alex-Antoine Proulx (August 16, 2016) and Luc Arpin (December 9, 2016).
Memorial site in tribute to the workers who died on La Romaine construction site.
(Facebook: Site commémoratif Chantier Romaine)
Saint-Rémi d'Amherst
In September 2025, the monument "Le Gardien du Souvenir" (the Guardian of Memory) was unveiled in memory of miners who perished in the 1940s due to the silicosis epidemic in the village of Saint-Rémi d'Amherst in the Laurentians. Silicosis is an industrial lung disease, caused by the inhalation of silica dust that causes irreversible lung damage. At that time, 46 victims were counted, but the number is believed to be much higher. So many deaths occurred that Saint-Rémi was nicknamed "the village of white widows." The granite and metal sculpture by Adrien Bobin and Philippe Pallafray is located in Place Burton-LeDoux.
Monument inaugurated in September 2025 in memory of the
workers who lost their lives in the silicon mine at Saint-Rémi
d'Amherst.
This article was published in
Volume 56 Number 24 - April 28, 2026
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/TML2026/Articles/T560248.HTM
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