These include McGill University “He was someone who felt an obligation to contribute to our broader society in many different ways and we were all the richer for that.” Today, many pavilions are named in his honour, including the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Paul-G.-Desmarais Pavilion at the Université de Montréal. Career After graduating from the University of Ottawa, Desmarais went to Osgoode Law School until he began working for Sudbury Bus Lines Limited, the restructured bus company formed from the remnants of the Sudbury and Copper Cliff Suburban Electric Railway his grandfather had founded. The company was sold to him for a symbolic 1 CAD, because it was almost bankrupt. He rescued the company and acquired additional bus lines in the Ottawa area and Quebec City (including Quebec Autobus, Provincial Transport and Regional Transport). By 1968 the holding company which Desmarais had acquired three years earlier, Trans-Canada Corporation Fund (TCCF), owned the bus line Provincial Transport, an interest in Toronto-based Imperial Life Assurance and Gesca Ltée, (which had an interest in the Montreal paper La Presse). That year TCCF made a share-exchange offer with Power Corporation of Canada, headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, whereby Paul Desmarais became chairman and chief executive officer and controlling shareholder. He founded the Canada China Business Council in 1978. Power Corporation of Canada Taking advantage of the substantial investment of Power Corporation of Canada, Desmarais took control of a large pulp and paper company, Consolidated Bathurst (built since in Stone-Consolidated, then merged with Abitibi-Price Inc. to form Abitibi-Consolidated, then Abitibi-Bowater and Resolute). At the same time, under the leadership of Desmarais, Power Corporation of Canada continued to acquire control positions in Great-West Life and Investors Group which formed the basis of Power Financial Corporation which was founded in 1984. Acquiring Trans-Canada Corporation Fund, Desmarais obtained the newspaper La Presse in 1968, which enabled him to gain experience in the field of print media in Canada. Then he looked for companies in Europe and he met the Belgian financier Albert Frère to the board of directors of Paribas. The two men discovered an alter ego, applying the same financial techniques: a friendly investment in substantial firms, some of which were experiencing financial hardship. Desmarais owned about 15% of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, a Belgian holding company, which in 2001 acquired a 25% interest in the German media company Bertelsmann, whose