Open this photo in gallery:
René Dallaire receiving the Ordre National du Québec in 2017.Supplied
In 1970, a week before his 19th birthday, René Dallaire was competing at a downhill ski event at Mont Vidéo, a ski centre near his hometown of Rouyn-Noranda, Que.
He missed a turn and veered into the woods, the hard snow projecting him forward at high speed until he hit a tree. When help came, the first thing he said was, “I can’t feel my arms or legs.” As his sister Suzanne Dallaire later recalled, that incident sealed the course for the rest of Mr. Dallaire’s life.
Rushed to hospital in Montreal, he was paralyzed from the neck down; the doctors gave him three days to live. But with boundless support from family and friends and huge dollops of personal grit, Mr. Dallaire proved the doctors wrong and lived more than 20,000 days longer, leading an extraordinary life of professional success and volunteer activism. He was an articulate voice for Quebec’s disabled community and founder of the Quebec Association for Adaptive Sailing, known by its French acronym, AQVA.
Mr. Dallaire died in Montreal on Oct. 25 at the age of 74 from complications of over 50 years of wheelchair use.
“He was inspiring,” said Paula Stone, vice-president at AQVA. An occupational therapist, she began working with Mr. Dallaire as a fellow volunteer in the 1990s, helping to organize four iterations of the Mobility Cup, the national adaptive sailing event, in Montreal over the past 25 years. “He was hardworking and very sociable, with lots of determination. He was a visionary.”
Mr. Dallaire was introduced to adaptive sailing in 1994 by Sam Sullivan, a fellow tetraplegic who went on to serve as mayor of Vancouver. Mr. Sullivan developed the sport and helped design the Martin 16, a custom sailboat for competitors with special needs. Mr. Dallaire was immediately hooked.
“I’ve been disabled for many years,” Mr. Dallaire told an interviewer in the summer of 2025, after hosting the Mobility Cup at AQVA’s home base, Pointe Claire Yacht Club, on the Island of Montreal. “When I began sailing in 1994, I realized that there was a sport … where I could compete and feel at the same level as anybody else.”
His challenge was particularly tough. A paraplegic with use of their arms can use a joy stick to control the rudder or the sails on an adapted boat. But with no control of his limbs, Mr. Dallaire had to use his mouth to skipper the boat.
“I have two straws in my mouth. One controls the rudder. If I sip, it will bring the rudder one way and if I puff, it will go the other way,” he explained. “The same with the sail. I puff and the sails go out and I bring the sails in by sipping.”
Open this photo in gallery:
René Dallaire with companion sailor Kat Walker.Trevor Awalt/Supplied
René Dallaire was born on March 6, 1951 in Rouyn-Noranda, the fifth of seven children (one of whom was a cousin brought up by the family) of Louis-Philippe Dallaire, a businessman and owner of a local dairy, and his wife Yvette Champagne.
As a child, René was smart and curious but got bored easily so his teacher would let him study the encyclopedia after he finished his classroom work. He was in the cadets and loved basketball, hockey and especially skiing.
The accident was traumatic for the whole family. After it happened, René’s parents moved to Montreal for five months to remain at their son’s bedside. The early weeks were particularly difficult. René became despondent and stopped eating but his parents convinced him that his intellect was what counted and that life was still worth living.
After five months in Montreal, René moved back to Rouyn-Noranda and eventually resumed his studies at a local CEGEP or junior college. His father bought an old Renault, had the roof removed, and turned it into a customized para-transport vehicle. At the college building in Rouyn-Noranda, there was no elevator so four of René’s fellow students would lift him in his wheelchair up the stairs to class.
He continued his studies in Montreal at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (now HEC Montreal), earning a business degree and then an MBA from University of Sherbrooke. He went on to become a chartered accountant, despite huge challenges. At his accounting exams, a fellow student helped to transcribe Mr. Dallaire’s answers but there was also an invigilator around to make sure he didn’t cheat.
After becoming a CPA, Mr. Dallaire eventually became director of finance at the Institut de Réadaptation de Montréal, a rehabilitation centre. He retired in his early 50s.
For Jean-Marc Dallaire, René’s nephew and godson, Uncle René was always a major presence in his life, “the glue” that kept the extended Dallaire family together as it scattered across Quebec from its hometown in the Abitibi region. He was the instigator of family events and had a charismatic personality.
“He was always my cool uncle,” Jean-Marc told The Globe and Mail. René was an early adopter of technology to help with his mobility issues, and Jean-Marc remembers his uncle doing “wheelies” with his power wheelchair. He was the first with new computers and benefitted hugely from the advent of voice recognition software, which meant he could be more productive without being dependent on others.
Open this photo in gallery:
René Dallaire was introduced to adaptive sailing in 1994 by Sam Sullivan, a fellow tetraplegic who went on to serve as mayor of Vancouver.Luka Bartulovic/AQVA
In 2022, after a series of personal difficulties, Mr. Dallaire found himself sent to a long-term care facility. He rebelled and with the help of supporters mounted a successful campaign to allow him to live in his own home, with assistance from caregivers 24 hours a day, paid for by the Quebec government.
“He was an exceptional man of great integrity,” said Jonathan Marchand, president of Coop Assist, a Quebec non-profit where Mr. Dallaire served on the board. “René believed deeply in our mission in favour of autonomy without compromise.” Mr. Marchand said that Mr. Dallaire also opposed the extension of medical assistance in dying (MAID) to disabled individuals, arguing that more resources need to be dedicated to allow people with disabilities to live rather than encouraging them to end their lives.
Mr. Dallaire also was active in Société Logique, a non-profit that built Quebec’s first universally accessible housing project, and he was on several boards.
He seldom took no for an answer. When the Mobility Cup was held in North Sydney, N.S., in 2022, Mr. Dallaire realized that the small plane he was due to fly on wouldn’t be able to accommodate his motorized wheelchair in its baggage hold. It was too big.
So he got in touch with the technician who serviced the chair and had him make a video explaining how the chair could be dismantled to have it fit into the hold. He presented the video at the airport and ground staff managed to take apart the wheelchair, load it onto the plane and reassemble it upon arrival.
Mr. Dallaire was named to the Ordre national du Québec in 2017 and to the Order of Montreal in 2023. He was also a Fellow of CPA-Quebec, the provincial association of chartered professional accountants.
Mr. Dallaire leaves his sisters, Gisèle, Marielle, Ghislaine and Suzanne; brother, Gaétan; cousin, Jacques Rousseau; nieces and nephews; and his wife, Sara Cheung-Dallaire.
Despite the extraordinary challenges Mr. Dallaire faced during his life, including periodic hospital stays and excruciating pain caused by bed sores, Jean-Marc said his uncle maintained his upbeat approach to life.
“In the 52 years that I knew him,” Jean-Marc said, “I never heard him once complain.”
You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.
To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.
