Former UFCW Canada national representative John Forster, who retired in 2005, died on March 3 after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 66.

Brother Forster joined the national staff of UFCW Canada following the 1986 merger of his union, the Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink, and Distillery (BFCSD) workers’ union, where he had been on staff since 1982. A teenage immigrant to Canada from England, John found work in a Brewers Retail (now The Beer Store) outlet in Toronto, and quickly became an activist in his union.

“John was always a champion of the workers he represented, from the shop floor on to his work at the national level,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley. “You would have to go far to find someone more in touch with and concerned about the needs of members. John always found unusual and unconventional approaches to problem solving. He enjoyed working the angles.”

As a national representative, John’s skills as a trainer and educator came to the fore, and he became one of our union’s leading facilitators in areas ranging from health and safety to grievances and arbitration and more. “John was naturally outgoing and engaging,” says Winston Gordon, a UFCW Canada national representative and former president of the now-merged Local 503W, then part of the BFCSD.

“It made him doubly valuable as a trainer – bringing out the best in people – and as an organizer with his gift of being able to communicate with people on their own terms.”

John leaves his wife, Donna (née Poirier, whom he met working in a UFCW Canada office in Halifax in the late 1980s) and two daughters, as well as a son and daughter from a previous marriage. He was pre-deceased by Jen, a daughter from the first marriage who worked on UFCW Canada’s agriculture workers campaigns, and died in a traffic accident in 2006.

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Memorial donation can be made to the Canadian Cancer Society.

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