Glenn O’Farrell

‘Civic duty’ compels Glenn O’Farrell to run for Liberals in Bellechasse

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Glenn O’Farrell, a senior communications executive, lawyer, St. Patrick’s High School graduate, Order of Canada recipient and native son of Saint-Malachie, is running for the Liberal Party in the Bellechasse–Les-Etchemins–Lévis riding on the South Shore.

O’Farrell, 66, will face Conservative Party incumbent Dominique Vien, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister who was defeated in the 2018 provincial election. She switched to the federal Conservatives in the 2021 election and won the seat held since 2006 by Conservative Steven Blaney.

Blaney, who served for many years in the cabinet of Stephen Harper, is now running for mayor of Lévis.

In 2022, Vien had been one of several Conservative MPs to urge former Quebec premier Jean Charest to run for the party leadership that he lost to Pierre Poilievre.

In a telephone interview with the QCT, O’Farrell ex- plained why he chose to leap into politics. “Very, very honestly and transparently, it was nothing more or less than a sense of civic duty at a time of what I would call an existential crisis for our country.”

He said, “Our former best partners, closest ally, certainly a nation that was related to us in more ways than we can imagine … [has] turned their backs on us and this new administration threatens us with economic terrorism that is designed to dismantle the very fabric of Canada.”

O’Farrell said, as a close observer of the political scene, he decided to get involved in Mark Carney’s campaign for the Liberal leadership. Carney’s team approached him about running, and “I was honoured by that, to be very honest with you. I said, well, maybe at this point in time, it’s time for me to exercise my civic duty and stand for election in a place that means a lot to me, that’s my home – Saint-Malachie, Bellechasse – where I was brought up, it’s been our home all our lives.”

O’Farrell said he still stays at a farm that’s been in the family for five generations.

After high school, O’Farrell got a degree in economics from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and in law from Université Laval. He joined a Quebec City law firm and in 1987 began a career in communications law and management that included TVA, Global Television, Canwest, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and TFO, Ontario’s independent French-language television channel.

He was a member of the board of governors for Ontario’s new French-language university and special adviser to the Ontario government on francophone economic development.

He received the Order of Canada in 2020 for his “vision for education and for his leadership in communications, having positioned a media outlet as a global symbol of French language and culture,” according to the citation.

Among the non-corporate boards he has served on are the Fondation du CHUL, the Jeffery Hale Foundation, the Théâtre du Bois-de-Coulonge in Quebec City and the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal.

In December, he gave a TED Talk in Montreal on the role of the media in shaping civil society.

As far as his chances of winning a riding that has not gone Liberal since a two-year blip in 2004, O’Farrell said the people of Bellechasse “need to make a choice.”

He said he respects the incumbent, but “my quarrel is with the leadership of that party that’s not in keeping with Canadian values.”

O’Farrell said Poilievre is “in no way, shape or form able to measure up to the competence, the experience, the calmness and the strength of character that Mark Carney brings — and I’m not trying to wax lyrical here. I mean this. We’re very fortunate as Canadians that a person of his calibre, with his networks, his background and experience, at this stage in life, would raise his hand and say ‘yes, I will serve and stand for prime minister.’” Besides O’Farrell and Vien, the nominated candidates in Bellechasse are Gaby Breton for the Bloc Québécois, Marie- Philippe Gagnon-Gauthier for the NDP, Raphaël Boilard for the Green Party, Mario Fréchette for the People’s Party of Canada and Yannick Lévesque for the Rhinoceros Party.