Deaths on October 12

Gérald Godin, Canadian journalist and politician (b. 1938)

Gérald Godin (November 13, 1938 – October 12, 1994) was a Quebec poet and politician.

Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, he worked as a journalist at La Presse and other newspapers and magazines. His most important poetry collection, Les cantouques: poèmes en langue verte, populaire et quelquefois française, was published in 1967. He was among those arrested under the War Measures Act during the October Crisis in 1970.

In the 1976 Quebec provincial election, he won a seat as a candidate for the Parti Québécois, heavily defeating incumbent Premier Robert Bourassa in his own riding of Mercier. He served in various cabinet posts in the governments of René Lévesque and Pierre-Marc Johnson. His life companion was the Québécois singer Pauline Julien.

As a poet, he won the Prix Québec-Paris for his 1987 work Ils ne demandaient qu'à brûler.

Godin died from brain cancer in October 1994.