Andrew McClelland
The Advocate
Ann Louise Carson may be only the fourth woman ever inducted into Quebec’s agricultural hall of fame, but don’t tell the long-time Townshipper and agricultural executive that her gender held her back.
“It never, never, never affected me throughout my career,” said Carson, who was one of four individuals named to the Temple de la renommée de l’agriculture du Québec last fall.
Her many job titles have taken her from government to private industry to non-profits.
“Were there people cackling in the background when I was hired? Maybe. But if they did, I didn’t care.”
It’s that kind of confidence that has allowed Carson to forge her own path in the agriculture industry.
Raised on the family dairy farm in Durham-Sud, northeast of Sherbrooke, she grew up the only daughter of Ross Carson and Andrée Côté. Having an anglophone father and francophone mother would serve her well in life.
Start on Township farm
Growing up on a farm in the Townships meant long hours, hard work and plenty of 4-H Club activities.
“Growing up on the farm, there was no feeding half the cows or feeding half the calves,” Carson said as she explained her work ethic. “You simply got it done. And 4-H added to that, with leadership help and working for the team.”
Carson was the third generation of her family to attend Macdonald College. Her grandmother had trained as a teacher at the college in 1916. The campus also housed the headquarters of the 4-H offshoot – Quebec Young Farmers. It was there that Carson got her first job upon graduation in 1981.
Two years later, the ever-restless Carson became communications director for the Townshippers’ Association where, in 1985, she was noticed by Quebec Agriculture Minister Michel Pagé, who hired her as his press secretary.
Worked for provincial ag minister
“That was an exciting time in Quebec,” Carson said. “The province had been under a different government for a decade and Robert Bourassa was in his second term. It felt like we could really do something.”
After growing up in farming, seeing the political side of agricultural policy framework was fascinating for Carson. And it bolstered her career as other potential employers took notice.
“That led to people seeing me because I was hanging around with the ‘tops.’ When you’re in government, you work with the top people,” Carson explained. “But five years in a minister’s office is enough. You learn so much, but your head is down and you just work.”
When Pagé was transferred from agriculture to education, Carson handed in her resignation, having no desire to work outside of agriculture.
“He said, ‘Of course, you’re going to come to the Ministry of Education’,” Carson recalled. “I said, ‘Nope. I’m in politics because I’m interested in agricultural politics.’”
Undaunted about the future, Carson did what she often did when between jobs: she travelled. The trips allowed her time to think about the future and satisfy her restless curiosity.
“That’s what I would do, I would just ‘jump’,” she said. “I think that time I went to the South Pacific with my knapsack, travelled for a month or two, and came back to find a job.”
Corporate opportunities
In 1991, Carson was hired by embryo transfer specialists Boviteq to be the company’s CEO. She was only 31 at the time.
Carson spent the next seven years criss-crossing the globe in managing Boviteq’s embryo transfer and sexed semen production, guiding the company through a changing industry toward profitability.
At the end of her tenure, she envisioned a successful company merger that combined Boviteq with Semex. The only problem was that it also merged her out of a job.
“I knew I was doing that. Merging the companies meant there would be a lot of redundant jobs,” Carson said. “It wasn’t only my job that was going to disappear, it was one of many. But today, Semex is doing quite well as a company.”
Upper-management positions followed at both dairy excellence centre Valacta and dairy genetic expert Eastern Breeders. But it was in 2012 at Holstein Canada where Carson really began making headlines again.
First woman head of Holstein Canada
“I was the first woman CEO to be hired at Holstein Canada in its 140-year history,” she said. “And the first Quebecer!”
Carson made Holstein Canada a truly bilingual organization, reflecting her upbringing.
“That’s what it needs to be, to truly be effective,” Carson said. “But I always moved to where the job was — much to my family’s chagrin — and after five years of working at Holstein Canada in Brantford, I wanted to come home to the Townships. It was a lovely five years, but I said goodbye.”
Now in retirement, Carson has time to enjoy the finer things in life: travel, the farms of the Townships, and the accolades like being named to the hall of fame and, on Feb. 16, receiving the King Charles III Coronation Medal. Created in 2023, the award is given to Canadians who have been deemed to have made a significant contribution to Canada or to a province or region of the country.