Marc Garneau

Quebec City native, astronaut Marc Garneau dies at 76

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Quebec City native, former cabinet minister and Canadian space pioneer Marc Garneau died on June 4. He was 76.

Marc Roy, Garneau’s former communications director, shared a brief statement from Garneau’s wife, Pamela Garneau, announcing the news.

“Marc faced his final days with the same strength, clarity and grace that defined his life. He passed away peacefully, surrounded by the love of his family,” Pamela Garneau wrote. “We are especially grateful to the medical team which provided such dedicated and compassionate care during his short illness.”

Garneau was born in Quebec City in 1949 – “in the old Jeffery Hale Hospital, the one in Vieux- Québec,” as he recounted to CBC’s Alison Brunette during the 2023 Literary Feast at the Morrin Centre. When he was a child, his family moved frequently due to his father’s military career. He studied engineering at the Royal Military College before completing a PhD at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, England, and joining the Navy as a combat systems engineer. In 1983, he was named one of Canada’s first six astronauts. The following year, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, he became the first Canadian in space.

“Take me back to that moment, you’re sitting there – 10, nine, eight … what’s going through your mind?” Brunette asked Garneau at the Literary Feast.

“If you imagine yourselves tipped over backward looking at the ceiling, that’s what your seat is like,” Garneau said as guests tipped their heads back. “There are people who sit you in your seat … and connect your radio, your oxygen, so you’re ready to go. Then they say good luck and close the hatch … You’re left there for two and a half hours before launch, the longest two and a half hours of your life. A lot of things go through your mind – do I really want to do this? Am I ready? … You realize you are ready, and you’re going to live something that very few people have ever experienced.

“When you see the entire planet, your perspective starts to change,” he said. “You see that this planet is the cradle of humanity … there’s nowhere else to go, and we have to find a way to get along with each other.”

The Challenger mission was the first of Garneau’s three trips to space. In 2001, he was named president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Garneau resigned from the CSA to run for Parliament as a Liberal in 2006. He lost on that first attempt, but won comfortably in Westmount–Saint Louis on his second try in 2008. His engineer’s directness and attention to detail made him popular with journalists and colleagues. He ran for the Liberal leadership in 2013 before throwing his support behind Justin Trudeau. Trudeau named him transport minister in his first cabinet, later promoting him to foreign affairs. He resigned in March 2023; at the time, he said he had promised his family he would step down after the joint committee on medical assistance in dying, on which he sat, had tabled its final report.

In retirement, he wrote an autobiography, A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream. One of his last public appearances was at the Morrin Centre, during this year’s Imagination Writers’ Festival, promoting the book.

Barry McCullough, executive director of the Morrin Centre, described his death from cancer as a “huge shock.”

“He was interesting and interested,” McCullough remembered. “He seemed like a really genuine person, and he had a lot of curiosity, which would be a good quality for an astronaut. He was born in Quebec City, went off and did all kinds of things, and then came back and connected with the English-speaking community, which is cool, because he has lived in both languages so he’s a really good spokesperson for bilingualism.”

Local Liberal MPs Jean-Yves Duclos and Joël Lightbound served alongside Garneau in Parliament. Lightbound called his passing “an immense loss for Canada.”

“I owe a lot to Marc,” Duclos wrote in a social media post. “He generously offered me his mentorship when I first became an MP. I will always remember his intelligence, his sense of duty and respect, and his commitment to his family. He repeatedly expressed to me his pride in being from the Quebec City region – a region whose interests he always helped me defend.”