Welcome to Sainte-Geneviève-de-Batiscan!
As you explore my beautiful hometown, you will quickly understand why I have been its faithful defender for years. I am the Honourable Jean-Louis Baribeau and this is my story.
My father, Donat Baribeau, was known throughout the canton for being a friendly rural trader as well as a talented farmer. Thanks to him, I quickly developed a keen sense of trade and agricultural techniques that I improved at the Collège du Sacré-Cœur in Victoriaville and then at the Griffin’s Business School in the state of Massachusetts. Upon my return, I became the owner and president of Compagnie Donat Baribeau & Fils Ltd., president of the Renardière de Sainte-Geneviève and director of the Retail Merchants Association of the province of Quebec. During all this, I found time to marry my dear Aimée Trudel, in 1923, and have a family of four children.
Many people would have stopped after doing all of this, but it wasn’t like me. The rural exodus of young people moved me so I decided to dedicate a good part of my career to politics. I was mayor of Sainte-Geneviève in 1929, federal deputy for the Conservative Party of Champlain County in 1930, councillor and then president of the Legislative Council of the Shawinigan division between 1950 and 1960. I was a strong supporter of the National Union, headed by my faithful friend Duplessis, and defended the rights of farmers and citizens of my counties. There is an impressive record of my actions at the Trois-Rivières Seminary Archives where all the newspaper clippings have been collected over time. I invite you to go through it... if you have a lot of time!
When I see young people coming back to this region to develop interesting businesses, I think that I was right to spend my whole life fighting for this cause. I will have marked, in my own way, the course of history!
SOURCES
Fonds Jean-Louis Baribeau FN 0429. Archives du Séminaire de Trois-Rivières / Site de l’Assemblée Nationale. Consulté le 22 juin 2016 / JeanLouis Baribeau: Le Mauricien, Trois-Rivières, mars 1938, pp. 24-25.