Albert Jean de Grandpré

Career Highlights

Educated at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf (BA 1940) and McGill University (BLC 1943), Albert Jean De Grandpré practised insurance law in Quebec City (1943–66) before joining Bell Canada as general counsel. He became president in 1973 and chairman and CEO in 1976.

Always notable for his aggressive defence of company interests and his distaste for government regulation, De Grandpré devised a scheme to reorganize Bell Canada (1981–83), a telephone utility under the regulatory authority of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission), into Bell Canada Enterprises Inc (BCE)  — a holding company that largely evaded that authority — in order to free the company for growth.

Thereafter, until his retirement in 1989, he preoccupied himself with directing BCE Inc's forays into foreign markets, especially in the Middle and Far East, where it won major supply and consultation contracts and established Canada's name in high-technology communications.

After his retirement, however, many of the diverse companies he had added to the BCE empire had to be sold at a loss in changing economic times.

Honours

In 1981, Albert Jean De Grandpré was made Officer of the Order of Canada, then Companion in 1987. He received Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.