The YCL-LJC salutes the memory of a comrade, mentor and friend of the YCL-LJC: Pierre Fontaine. Leader of the Communist Party of Québec for 15 years, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada, Pierre died on May 27 of a heart attack. 

The life of our late comrade merges with his militancy, which was forged through many years of struggles for the emancipation of the working class, the construction and the defense of a resolutely class-based Communist Party and a communist press in Quebec, the right to self-determination of oppressed nations and proletarian internationalism. In his entire life as an activist and political leader to the service of the working class, Pierre never hesitated to face the various obstacles, particularly in 2005 when he mobilized his energy, his educational talents and his unparalleled knowledge of Marxism-Leninism to fight against a petty-bourgeois nationalist split which would have made the PCQ a party “like the others”, stripped of its revolutionary essence, which retains from Marxism only what is acceptable in the eyes of the ruling class. 

His political convictions emanated not only from a thorough study of the fundamental principles of Marxism, but also from his daily experience as a labour unionist. He served as an organizer for the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN), then Vice-President of the Federation of Health and Social Services (FSSS) of the CSN, one of Canada’s most important unions in that time. 

Pierre also took part in one of the most important moments of the left in Quebec for the last twenty years by being one of the founding members of the Union des forces progressistes, today Québec solidaire. 

For many of us, Pierre has been a source of inspiration in our daily struggles. This is particularly the case for our comrades of the LJC-Q who have forged themselves as activists by his side. 

The political and ideological convictions which animated him made him a man who manifested an evident faith in the future of Humanity. This is why he took a close interest in the activities of the YCL-LJC, promoting its expansion and its strengthening on all fronts. If we have a pan-Canadian communist youth organization today, it is because as a leader of the PCQ, he knew the importance of seconding Party cadres to organize revolutionary and progressive youth in Quebec, and it is undoubtedly one of his contributions which will pass to posterity. 

May his life as an labour unionist and as a revolutionary dedicated to the cause of socialism be an example for the youth that is starting to engage in this struggle.