From the Faculty of Sciences of Port-au-Prince to the Canadian Senate
Jean Numa Goudou ·
Senator Suze Youance received the Casimir Gzowski Gold Medal (awarded for the best written contribution in surveying, structures or heavy construction) in 2017.
Suze Youance always welcomes her visitors with a big smile and sparkling eyes. A bit like a diplomat she almost became after her classical studies. "I wanted to study in International Relations," she recalls. But like all Haitian children, her parents pushed her to put on boots and wear a safety helmet: civil engineer, a man's profession.
"It's still the case today in Haiti," observes in an interview with In Texto, she who has always been comfortable with calculations and math, since she was very young. Her brother was already an engineer and her sister an architect, hence the family's insistence.
At her father's instigation, she participates in the admission competition for the Faculty of Sciences, among others. They only took 120 candidates, including 5 girls. She came out 14th, to her great surprise.
"I said to myself: what is this? I wasn't even ready and I achieved a score like that. I stayed because I took it as a challenge and I never regretted doing engineering," she admits.
After her studies, she obtained a three-month internship with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), as a civil engineer. An internship that became a permanent job. Because Suze Youance spent about 11 years building structures in Haiti for Canadian cooperation.
In 2006, she emigrated. The engineer chose Canada to settle. Before her arrival, she sent an application to the École de technologie supérieure (ETS) for a master's degree before completing a doctorate there. She was accepted immediately. Because her experiences with CIDA in Haiti opened the door to the Order of Engineers, without knocking. Without even going through the maze of study equivalency.
From the first session at ETS, she was recruited by a professor who offered to supervise her thesis on seismic engineering. "It's exactly what I wanted to do," she says. She wanted to work on public buildings in Haiti and the risk that they would collapse in the event of an earthquake.
Because, six years before the 2010 earthquake, already in 1994, she and a group of engineers, including Claude Prepetit, began reflecting on "post-crisis recovery." An earthquake was also considered in the brainstorming.
"Since 1996, the group began saying that we should have an earthquake, 'because the return period had arrived'." Which indeed happened in 2010. Engineer Youance, a master's student, no longer had a thesis subject at that time, because all the buildings had collapsed. Except the Téleco building, in Pont-Morin, built in 1980 according to seismic standards and the Central Building of the BRH, erected in 2006. Her thesis was ultimately focused on masonry churches in Montreal.
How one becomes a senator
Senator Suze Youance
Before applying to an independent committee, established by Justin Trudeau, which recommends members of the Canadian Senate to the Prime Minister, Suze Youance was very involved in the community world:
• President of the board of directors of the Bureau de la communauté haïtienne de Montréal (BCHM).
• Member of the board of directors of the Société d'habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM);
• Member of the board of directors of the organization Mains utiles;
• President of the Association des parents du Collège Sainte-Marcelline;
• President of the scientific council of the UNESCO Chair "Women and Sciences for Development" in Haiti.
• Member of the board of directors of the Institut des sciences, des technologies et des études avancées d'Haïti and the board of directors of the Centre de la petite enfance TechnofloS of ETS.
In addition to professional qualities, these involvements largely favored her selection on September 25, 2024. There are 105 senators sitting in the Senate with an irremovable mandate until their 75th birthday, which is retirement for them.
She currently sits on four Senate committees that align with her areas of expertise and the main contributions she wants to put forward:
The Subcommittee on Vision and Plan, responsible for overseeing renovation work on Parliamentary Precinct buildings, the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources; the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs; the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament.
Furthermore, she co-founded the Canada–Haiti Parliamentary Group of which she serves as co-chair. "Haiti remains in Canada's priorities. There is a dynamic, she says, but we are waiting to know the direction the Haitian government wants to take. We cannot substitute for them."
Blacks and diversity
The issue of diversity interests the senator greatly. "One of the Senate's mandates is to listen and represent minorities," she recalls. A group of eight senators deals with issues affecting Black communities, particularly.
Everything related to youth, engineering and Haiti falls within the engineer's field of vision. The situation of Blacks in Canada also concerns her. "I have my personal perspective and there is that of the senator," the senator specifies before putting the George Floyd effect on the subject into context. "Five years ago, his daughter said: my daddy changed the world," Suze Youance remembers.
Since then, there have been projects, funding and "a lot of awareness."
"We are questioning the assessment today," notes the parliamentarian.
A forum with the University of Victoria this summer should answer this question: how do we feel the impact of this new awareness 5 years later?
"We want to evaluate," concludes the friendly senator.
About
The Honorable Suze Youance is a civil engineer, researcher, scientific communicator and certified corporate director. Holder of a doctorate in construction engineering from the École de technologie supérieure (ETS), she has worked on technical issues related to seismic vulnerability and post-seismic functionality of critical buildings, contributing to public safety and infrastructure resilience. She taught at ETS for nearly 15 years and held positions in consulting engineering firms such as FNX-INNOV and CIMA+.
She volunteers in activities promoting women in engineering.
The Honorable Youance graduated in civil engineering from the Université d'État d'Haïti and holds a master's and doctorate in construction engineering from ETS. She is a member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec.