Fonds P012 - Paul Desruisseaux fonds

Lawyer, businessman, and public figure Paul Desruisseaux was born in Sherbrooke on 1 May 1905 to Geoffrey Desruisseaux and Sarah Gauthier. In 1945, he married Céline Duchesne. They had four children. Paul Desruisseaux studied at the École du Sacré-Coeur and the Séminaire St-Charles-Borromée in Sherbrooke, the law school of Université de Montréal, the Babson Institute, and Harvard University. In 1934, he was admitted to the Quebec Bar. The following year, he opened an office in Sherbrooke and practised law there until 1961. Desruisseaux was also a businessman who founded and managed many companies. In 1955, he and Alphée Gauthier bought La Tribune Ltée, which owned La Tribune newspaper, radio stations CHLT and CKTS, and CHLT television station. In 1966, after many strikes and conflicts, La Tribune Ltee was sold to Québec Télémédia Inc. The same year, Desruisseaux was appointed to the Senate by Governor-General Georges Vanier at the request of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Paul Desruisseaux sat on the boards of many humanitarian organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross Society in Sherbrooke and the Canadian Association for Retarded Children. In 1964, Desruisseaux was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by Université de Sherbrooke. Paul Desruisseaux died in 1982, two years after retiring from the Senate, following a lengthy illness.