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In my last email, I gave a brief history of our Quebec-based Pro-Life organization, Quebec Life Coalition (QLC, also known in French as Campagne Québec-Vie). I explained how, in our country’s history, Quebec has very often been at the root of the cultural revolution that has taken our society down the path of abortion, euthanasia, same sex “marriage” and indifference and even hostility to God.

I explained why pro-Life Canadians needed a pro-Life Quebec, and that all Canadians, even those from outside Quebec, had an urgent interest in helping those who are fighting in Quebec for a Culture of Life from within Canada’s arguably most pro-abortion province.

But just who are the people in Quebec working full-time for Campagne Québec-Vie / Quebec Life Coalition? Where do they come from? How do they make a living? For space considerations, I’ll only profile two employees today. (Today is the 5th day of our 2-week fundraiser; we have made some great progress, but are $11,090 from our 15,000$ goal. If you want Quebec to be Pro-Life, please give today.)

I’ll start from our most senior worker: Mario Richard.

Mario Richard (left) and CQV/QLC Founder Gilles Grondin, circa 1995

He joined our organization over 30 years ago, as a young man living in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a working-class, East-end borough of Montreal, not too far from where our offices are currently located. A lay member of the Servite Order, he was looking for work in accounting at the time, when he somehow had received through the mail a newsletter from CQV. It wasn’t long before he began working for CQV full time. The director at the time, Gilles Grondin, appreciated Mario’s reliability, fidelity, and discretion. Thirty years later, Mario has proven himself to be a rock for CQV. He handles the financial side of our operations: donations, bequests, salaries. He is as essential and steady as a healthy heart, who beats with compassion for the unborn and for his province of Quebec, so mismanaged and travestied over the years.

Next is Brian Jenkins, our vice-president and vigil organizer.

Brian also grew up in Montreal, but in a more anglophone milieu. He received a degree in engineering at McGill and subsequently spent several years discerning a religious vocation. He eventually received a master’s in philosophy at the Dominican College in Ottawa. It was there that he began praying outside abortion centres. He then went to New York City where he joined Mgr. Reilly’s “Helpers of God’s Precious Infants” in praying outside abortion mills. His ailing mother brought him back to Montreal about 15 years ago, where he soon joined up with us for our 40 Days for Life prayer campaigns outside of Montreal’s Morgentaler abortion facility. Since then, he has been working with us full time, maintaining a constant, daily presence outside many of Montreal’s abortion facilities, as well as organizing about twenty 40 Days for Life campaigns.

And now for the question most everyone asks: “How do you guys make a living?” The simple answer is: we ask. We ask people for money. And somehow, for over 30 years, this works. Like mysterious manna gratefully received every morning, the money is somehow there to work another day. And today a new day is born, a new mother weighs her options, a new unborn life is threatened, another soul is tempted to turn away from God and towards a life of meaninglessness and empty, transient pleasures. We at QLC turn to God for help and to you whom God calls to help. We turn to you. Today we are asking for you to help us fight the good fight for Life in Quebec — can you?

God bless,

Georges Buscemi, President
Quebec Life Coalition / Campagne Québec-Vie

p.s. You now know 2 of our 6 full time workers. In a next email, I will introduce you to the next 4. Thanks for helping us continue this life-saving work.