I met Madeleine Parent three times First time during the Oka Crisis It was the night the troops moved in on the barricades at Kanewake with armed intent When the news flashed hundreds of us sat down on the street in front of the Hydro-Quebec building,expecting the riot squad to arrest us at any minute Madeleine was sitting quite close by me,a woman then in her seventies People were scared, I was scared Madeleine’s face didn’t even change Second time in 2005 at a lancement of Anna Kruzynski’s book on community organizing in the Pointe As an invited speaker I later met with Madeleine and we spoke for the first time Told her I was a maudit bloke de souche like Kent Rowley and she laughed She was far from being some kind of uptight doctrinaire, humourless and puritanical It was her love of life that made her such a good fighter Third time in late winter of 2011 when Martin Duckworth took me to see her in her nursing home Single room simple with bed table, computer and photos of comrades and union mates on the walls along with souvenir posters of past struggles She had just about lost all long term memory but still clear in her mind in the moment One good look into her eyes and you knew that this woman with her serene smile was still that woman that backed down Maurice Duplessis himself Just a few years before at the age of 87 she had organized the patients in the home against an All Lights Out At 10:00 O’clock restriction She won She went out fighting Salut Madeleine salut comarade Solidarité David Fennario