The Canadian labour law community has lost yet another giant. Laval University’s Pierre Verge had passed. Pierre was a recipient of the prestigious Bora Laskin Award in Labour Law in 2004. Please read the words of his colleagues, Professors Guylaine Vallée, Dominic Roux, Gregor Murray, and Jacques Bélanger.
Dear Colleagues,
It’s with heavy hearts that we wish to inform you of the death of our dear colleague Pierre Verge, Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Law, Université Laval. A man of excessive modesty, Pierre’s contributions were simply remarkable: fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the second recipient of the Bora Laskin Award for his stellar contributions to labour law
Professor Emeritus
Pierre Verge
scholarship in Canada, Dean of his Faculty, a huge investment in all aspects of the journal Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations (for which his first article dates from 1963 and his last from 2012), Editor of the Cahiers de droit, recipient of the Gérard Temblay Prize of the Industrial Relations Department at Université Laval for his outstanding contribution to the field of industrial relations, one of the founders and guiding spirits of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT), an active member of national and international associations on labour and social law, an outstanding international reputation for his erudition in our field of study, a preeminent specialist in the recomposition of labour law, an esteemed and generous teacher and colleague who prized above all the humanist values that underscored his scholarship, to name but just a few of his contributions…
Pierre died on the evening of Saturday, February 7th, 2015. Parkinson’s Disease, which he accepted with both courage and lucidity, finally got the better of him. Thanks to his wife Colette and their children – Marc, Caroline and Louis – Pierre was able to negotiate this passage embraced in love, with dignity and in peace.
Even though his illness had greatly affected his ability to move and to speak, his intelligence and thirst for knowledge remained completely in tact. When the Mélanges / Festschrift edited in his honour by Dominic Roux were published by les Presses de l’Université Laval last December, he was able to appreciate them and had even embarked over the last month on an ambitious reading program as the different chapters were read aloud. Similarly, he was an active Web participant of the Third Pierre Verge Lecture, organized by the Faculty of Law and CRIMT on the 22nd of January 2015. On the home page of the CRIMT website you can consult both the contents of the book and view the Pierre Verge Lecture delivered, in French, by Guylaine Vallée who explores and illuminates the major themes defining Pierre Verge’s body of work. Pierre was even able to consult the most recent Supreme Court of Canada decision (30 January 2015), which marked a major reversal of previous decisions in according constitutional status to the right to strike – which is exactly what Pierre had been arguing since the mid-1980s.
Memorial service details are as follows: http://www.coopfuneraire2rives.com/avis-de-deces/pierre-verge-112281/
Guylaine Vallée, Dominic Roux, Gregor Murray, Jacques Bélanger
Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work / Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (le CRIMT); School of Industrial Relations, Université de Montréal; and Faculty of Law and Department of Industrial Relations, Université Laval