Paul Demers

 Singer/Songwriter March 9, 1956 – October 29, 2016

Joined Local 180 on March 15, 1983

Paul Demers was a Canadian singer-songwriter. He was best known for writing the song “Notre place,” which came to be recognized as an anthem of the Franco-Ontarian community.

Born in Gatineau, Quebec, his family moved to Ottawa, Ontario, when he was 16. He began performing as a musician in adulthood, touring music festivals across Ontario and forming the band Purlaine in 1979. Following a diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the early 1980s, however, he took several years off from music to undergo cancer treatment.

He came out of retirement in 1986 to write “Notre place,” which was originally commissioned for a gala to celebrate the passage of Ontario’s 1986 French Language Services Act. Following “Notre place,” Demers returned to touring, both as a solo artist and with musicians Robert Paquette and Marcel Aymar in the group Paquette-Aymar-Demers; he also released three albums and worked as a theatre producer and director. A biography of him, by writer Pierre Albert, was published by Éditions Interligne in 1992.

Paul was diagnosed with mesothelioma in January 2016.

Rest in peace, Paul.

Link

• Paul Demers (Wikipedia article)

Source: eNews Harp, March 2017