(30 May 1917-21 Aug. 1985), businessman, political figure. (Fern Guindon) Born at Fugèreville, Que. (place of birth Bourget, Ont., also stated) Parents: Pascal Guindon and his wife Joséphine Lalonde. Education: Ottawa Seminary and University of Ottawa (B. A., 1939). Fernand Guindon was a proofreader and translator 1939-1940 for Le Droit, Ottawa, and a translator for the federal government, 1940-1945. From 1945 to 1956 he was in the petroleum business at Apple Hill, GC, with his father. In the 1950s, perhaps in 1956, he established his own petroleum business in Cornwall. He was the Conservative candidate in the Glengarry-Prescott federal general election of 1953, but he was defeated by Raymond BRUNEAU, one of the two Liberal candidates. (The other was W.J. Major) (Glengarry News 9 July &13 Aug. 1953) Fernand Guindon was Conservative MLA for Glengarry 1957 to 1963, winning elections in 1957 (defeating John McLennan, Liberal) and 1959 (defeating W.J. Major, Liberal). From 1963 to 1974 he was Conservative MLA for Stormont, winning elections in 1963, 1967, and 1971. He became minister without portfolio in the Ontario government in 1967, was minister of tourism and information, 1971-1972, and minister of labour from 1972. In these posts he served under premiers Robarts and Davis.

     He left provincial politics in 1974 in an unsuccessful attempt to enter federal politics. From 1963 he was chairman of the St. Lawrence Parks Commission. Also in 1963 he sold his interest in the Cornwall petroleum business (then called Cornwall Petroleum Ltd), but in 1974 (Glengarry News 12 Dec. 1974) he bought the Apple Hill and Alexandria oil business of his late brother, J. V. Guindon. Fern Guindon died in hospital in Ottawa. He was married 5 Sept. 1942 to Claire-Marie Rouette (d. 13 Dec. 2007, aged 90). (five children) One of their sons, Luc Guindon, was MLA for Cornwall and Cornwall Township at the time of his father’s death. Another son, Pierre Guindon, played professional football with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Montreal Allouettes before becoming a lawyer in Cornwall. With the exception of Premier Sandfield Macdonald, Fern Guindon was the only Glengarrian who ever reached ministerial rank in the Ontario government. No Glengarrian has been a federal minister since Sandfield Macdonald’s brother D.A. Macdonald in 1873-1875. Successful in so much else, Glengarrians have clearly not thriven in cabinet-level politics.

Ottawa Citizen 22, 23, 26 Aug. 1985 (portrait), Le Journal de Cornwall, 29 août 1985 * entries in The Canadian Who’s Who * Roderick Lewis 96, 360 * Forman, III, 166, 176 * Paul-Françoise Sylvestre, Nos parlementaires (1987): index * marries, Glengarry News 11 Sept. 1942 * death of widow, Le Journal de Cornwall, 6 mars 2008 * biog. articles (portrait) on Pierre Guindon, GN 5 Dec. 1984 & 2 Aug. 1995