Daughter of air force sergeant is Quebec’s top legionnaire
by Harvey Shepherd
Paulette Cook has had a keen interest in the military since childhood. As a girl, she accompanied her father, a medical sergeant in Canada’s air force, to postings in Germany and several centres in Canada.
Cook never enlisted, but that didn’t stop her from being elected last May to the top job in the Quebec branch of Canadian veterans’ main organization.
In an interview, Cooke said her gender has never been an issue. At the Rimouski convention, she was the first woman elected president of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Quebec Command, which has existed for 79 years. The Nov. 11 Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Cenotaph, at Place du Canada, will be the first she presides over.
She’s found the first few months of the two-year post fulfilling. She is largely preoccupied with helping the Quebec membership of about 18,000 receive the pensions and benefits they’re entitled to. She also advises many of the legion’s 130 Quebec branches on facing the challenges of flagging memberships and revenues.
Cook said that help with pensions is the most important service that the Montreal office of the Quebec command provides. The four member staff is faced with constant requests from aging veterans and widows. Only one member, Debbie Viskelis, is responsible for responding to the steady stream.
Cook, usually straightforward and cheery, admitted that a visit to a New Year’s Eve show for patients at the Hospital in Ste. Anne de Bellevue left her feeling pretty weepy. Despite this, she added “you feel good because you’re doing something for them, even if it’s just saying hello.”
The Legion was created in 1925-26 to serve WWI veterans. Now, most WWII veterans are in their early 80s. Cook said that, so far, the Legion has had less success in attracting veterans of recent peacekeeping operations than it would like, although she hopes that will change.
“We’re trying to bring in new members to keep the memories alive.”
Cook was 19 and living with her parents in Bedford when her father sponsored her membership in the Philipsburg Legion Branch 82 in 1972. Before long, she was in charge of the branch’s annual poppy sales campaign. Moving up through executive posts in the local branch, the Yamaska Valley District No. 9, then provincial command to her present day post, she has seldom looked back.
Cook is not the only woman to achieve high office in the Legion. The current Dominion president, Mary Ann Burdett, a member of the Legion branch in Terrace, BC, became the first woman to hold that national post when she was elected at the 40th Dominion convention in London, ON, in 2004. Burdett, now retired, served with the Royal Canadian Air Force at several eastern posts before a career in the British Columbia public service.
There are few Quebec Legion branches that could be classifed as exclusively French or English-speaking, and the same is true of Cook, who is fluently bilingual.
Though she uses her maiden name, Guérin, in her personal life, “Paulette Cook” is a reference to her first marriage and is still her “Legion name”.
In 2001, Paulette married Tom Irvine. A member of Hemmingford Branch 244 and former president of Branch 196 in Ormstown, he has been chairman of the board of the Dominion Command since 2004. He has served more than 23 years with the Third Battalion of the Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment of Canada in Montreal, including active duty in the Middle East. The couple live in LaSalle.
