Aline Desjardins

Marie Aline Michelle Desjardins was born on 21 August 1934 in Saint-Pascal, in the Kamouraska region of Quebec's Lower St. Lawrence, the youngest of 11 children. She first intended to become a teacher and obtained her teaching diploma in 1956 after leaving the convent school. Her older sister Marcelle worked in radio, and it was her example that steered Aline towards broadcasting.

She was hired by CKBM radio in Montmagny in 1956, straight out of school, and then spent six years on air in Sherbrooke, where she also began working in television. In 1964 she joined Radio-Canada in Montreal as a journalist, and in the mid 1960s she was called on to replace Michèle Tisseyre alongside Wilfrid Lemoyne on the programme Aujourd'hui.

In 1966 she took over Femme d'aujourd'hui from Lizette Gervais, co-hosting at first with Yoland Guérard. The daily hour long magazine for a female audience had dealt mainly with domestic matters such as fashion and cooking. Desjardins transformed it into a place to discuss society, tackling abortion, incest, conjugal violence, divorce and the legal capacity of women at a time when such subjects were rarely aired. She hosted it for 13 years and close to 3,000 episodes, and it drew large audiences. She later recalled that despite a male hierarchy the team enjoyed great freedom, and that she made full use of it.

In 1982 and 1983 she co-hosted Repères, a weekly information magazine on consumer issues, the environment and quality of life, and she reported regularly for the news programme Ce soir. From 1984 to 1986 she co-hosted Avis de recherche with Gaston L'Heureux, a popular show that tracked down former classmates and acquaintances of public figures, long before social media made that easy.

Her interest in the land and the environment then shaped the rest of her career. She was a regular journalist and occasional host on La Semaine verte, worked on the radio programme D'un soleil à l'autre on Radio-Canada's Première Chaîne, and helped conceive and then hosted Des jardins d'aujourd'hui, a weekly horticulture and landscaping programme, from 1989 to 1995. It closed her television career of about 40 years.

Desjardins was described by those close to her as a free woman who loved life and living well, a tireless defender of women's rights and someone deeply attached to the French language and to the quality of information. Her researcher on Avis de recherche, Hélène Mailloux, became a close friend and later managed her professional affairs at the Agence Premier Rôle. She remained active and articulate into old age, appearing in 2025 in a Radio-Canada video marking 50 years since International Women's Year and as a guest on Tout peut arriver in March 2026. Her survivors included nephews, nieces and their children.

Aline Desjardins died peacefully in Montreal on Friday 13 November 2026, aged 92, surrounded by loved ones, after an illness that had worsened in the preceding weeks. The Agence Premier Rôle announced her death in a statement from Hélène Mailloux, which said that as a pioneer in a field largely dominated by men she had opened the way for a whole generation of women journalists. Quebec premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon offered condolences on behalf of the government, saying she had profoundly marked Quebec journalism. A celebration in her honour was to be planned later.

Desjardins is remembered as a pioneer of women in Quebec broadcasting. For years women stopped her in the street or at the grocery store to tell her how much Femme d'aujourd'hui had influenced them. In 2024 she received the prix René-Lévesque, which honours an outstanding contribution to Quebec journalism, and was made an officer of the Ordre national du Québec, the province's highest honour. Presenting the insignia, premier François Legault praised her for breaking taboos and giving women a voice when public space and the media were very male. She was also a recipient of the Femmes de mérite award.