Pierre Hughe Boisvenu Senator - Moussa Sidimé killed his 13 years-old daughter - 60 days in prison in Quéebec

Moussa Sidimé killer

Pierre Hughe Boisvenu

Pierre -Hugues Boisvenu announced yesterday he left the presidency of the Association for the Defence of Families of Persons Assassinated or Disappeared ( AFPAD ) , which he founded five years ago with three other bereaved fathers . This role is inconsistent, he agrees with the new Senate career that begin next week. Over the past five years, and in the wake of a personal tragedy , Pierre- Hugues Boisvenu became a public figure. Portrait of man, and also his association, which has had its share of crises during its short existence .

Mr Pierre-Hugues Bienvenu Senator

Pierre -Hugues Boisvenu smokes one cigarette per day . He smokes the night in his garage, or while out on the ground of his comfortable residence Sherbrooke. This unique cigarette smoking , he talks to his two daughters, died tragically three years apart. And, he says , Julie and Isabelle meet him. "They are very good counselors , he says . They say, " It's beautiful . " Or " . Thou hast put a little too much" This is a very dynamic relationship . Very much alive. "
 
These two missing girls who are still in daily mind of a father show how the life of Pierre -Hugues Boisvenu was marked by these tragedies. If Julie had not died murdered by Hugo Bernier in 2002, his father would be a peaceful retired civil servant , absorbed in international cooperation projects . And highchair row in the dining room serve more. " I would not be senator. There would be no association. It might be grandparents, four, five, six times. "
Instead , the president of the Association of Families of Persons Assassinated or Disappeared ( AFPAD ) is sitting in this room with a journalist . The lapel of his gray jacket , he wears sun yellow ribbon became the symbol of his cause. During the massacre at Virginia Tech , he was surprised to see grieving parents wear this ribbon which he had himself chosen color. "The yellow, it symbolizes the light at the end of the tunnel. "

This tunnel of mourning, he crossed twice. "After the death of Isabella, God , for me, was a murderer. " And he saw dozens of families go astray . In infancy AFPAD the helpline sounded straight home . "There was this woman. Her daughter was murdered in the early 90s. She had a lot of rage. One evening , I told him : " Please do not call me anymore. I can not help you, " he says . She was dying with her daughter. "

To enhance his sentence, Pierre- Hugues Boisvenu selected action. He used his experience of the state machine - he worked in seven departments and six regions - to advance his cause. "He also succeeded because he knew the government apparatus ," said his former boss, André Boisclair .

The former minister clearly remembers the day he met Boisvenu, during a meeting of regional directors of the Department. Much to the table, he sat in front of the minister. "We had warned me against his impetuous side channel Boisclair . He distinguished himself by his outspokenness. "

The man knew his records, said the former minister . Boisvenu was born in Ottawa , grew up in Abitibi in a family of 10 children. He has always lived in the region . "I've always been regionalist ," he said. And he got tons of time to get impatient against the standards in force in Quebec . "They have not found me sitting , for sure . "

Impetuosity has also sometimes played tricks on him when it came time to defend the victims. "My role is just to remember . I often tell him be careful , "says Michel Laroche , a former colleague from the Department of Justice who joined the AFPAD , it is, since yesterday, the new president.

There was one year, the Laroche lawyer choked when Boisvenu denounced in a letter to the editor , the " fantasy of rehabilitation" maintained, according to him, by criminologists and judges. " We should not get back to the bench . I thought he was exaggerating a bit. But I could never carry the torch as it does , "says Michel Laroche.

It is true that Pierre -Hugues Boisvenu is not stingy with his opinions. "His ideas are those of an individual right. That does not make him an expert or a reference , "says a source in Quebec . " All his action was recovered for political purposes . The public has increasingly fear of crime. However, the crime rate has decreased significantly , "says criminologist Jean -Claude Bernheim, which defends the rights of detainees.

"Politicians were forced to realize that , legally , with the victims , it was an extreme that made ​​more sense ," retorted Michel Surprenant, one of four bereaved fathers who founded AFPAD . In five years of existence , the pressures of the Association were moved three provincial legislation. The victims' families are better compensated. They can take time off without losing their jobs. We pay their psychotherapy sessions . It is far from the $ 600 funeral expenses that Boisvenu family could claim after the death of his predecessor.

But all is not yellow sun in the association founded by Pierre -Hugues Boisvenu . His appointment to the Senate created a break with his friend Marcel Bolduc , one of the founding fathers. In the forum of the association, Marcel Bolduc holds very harsh on Boisvenu , which , he felt , could not hold the offices of President becoming senator.

" My family denounced the speech of Mr. Boisvenu, who uses his deceased daughter to gain sympathy . It's a little twisted, he wrote. The Conservatives need a person with good visibility , and who knows touch sensitive souls , it took them a kodak kid and Mr. Boisvenu doing well in this area. I regret that Mr. Boisvenu allowed himself to be caught in that trap . It is no longer the man I met five years ago ! "

Mr. Bolduc has refused to grant us an interview .

This is not the first crisis facing AFPAD in its short existence . There is a little over a year after the vice -president , Michele Labelle, was removed from the board, four women have resigned, some of them alleging a conflict of interest . The AFPAD was about to create a post online reference , paid around $ 25,000 per year. Post which had been devoted to ... Marcel Bolduc, himself a member of the board. With the support of Mr. Boisvenu .