Sun Life now remembers: yes, we left Quebec in 1978
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Remember that timeline on Sun Life Financial Inc.’s website that skipped the period from 1973 to 1982?
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Sun Life now remembers: yes, we left Quebec in 1978 Back to video
We reported last month that the timeline omitted the company’s infamous announcement on January 6, 1978 that it would be moving its corporate headquarters from Montreal to Toronto.
Sun Life’s decision, which the company said at the time was prompted by Quebec’s new Bill 101 language law, shocked the business community and enfuriated the provincial government of the time. The decision had major repercussions because Sun Life was a symbol of Montreal’s bustling financial community and its ornate corporate headquarters across from Dorchester Square were a well-known feature of the downtown cityscape.
Many Quebecers were angered by the decision. Jacques Parizeau, finance minister under the government of Premier René Lévesque, blasted the decision, calling the company “one of the worse corporate citizens Quebec has ever known.”
The transfer was the biggest corporate defection from the province since the Parti Québécois had taken power on Nov. 15, 1976. Shocked by the announcement, employees at the Montreal Stock Exchange dubbed the day “Black Friday.”
Yet although this decision was undoubtedly the most famous move by the insurance company in the province’s history, Sun Life somehow forgot to mention it on the corporate history posted on its website.
Diane Lafontaine, the company’s assistant vice-president for Quebec, now says it was all a big mistake.
“I don’t know why it wasn’t there,” she explained. “There is no reason why it wouldn’t be there. It is now, and that’s it.” Lafontaine says the website was being overhauled in January and the historic move somehow got omitted on the timeline. No employees working on the site were able to explain to her why, she said. “It’s part of our history so it should be there.” The website’s timeline has been corrected and the move of the corporate headquarters now figures as part of the timeline.
Here are some stories about Sun Life’s move that were published in the January 7, 1978 edition of The Gazette:
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