Surviving Dionnes have birthday wish
Last of the quintuplets urge funding for childhood home, better child abuse prevention
SAINT-BRUNO-DE-MONTARVILLE, QUE.— Cecile and Annette Dionne have just two items on their wish list as they get set to celebrate their 83rd birthday Sunday.
The surviving Dionne quintuplets would like various levels of government to ensure their soon-to-be-relocated birthplace in North Bay has a consistent source of funding once it is moved.
And in a rare interview, the sisters said they’d also like to see Canada do more to prevent child abuse.
The identical sisters were born on May 28, 1934, near Corbeil, Ont., and were the first quintuplets to survive more than a few days. The Ontario government took them from their parents and placed them in a special hospital where they spent the first nine years of their lives and served as a tourist attraction that poured roughly $500 million into provincial coffers.
Because of their own experience with exploitation, they’re asking the government to do more for kids across Canada.
“In our case, there were huge gaps . . . there was abuse,” Annette told The Canadian Press in the interview at her home south of Montreal. “So, for our birthday, we wish that Canada would take better care of their children.”
“That they take the time,” Cecile said. “That we can help them with their problems, that we listen to them.
The surviving quints still capture the public’s interest.
Carlo Tarini, an advocate and communications specialist who works with the sisters, said they still receive letters to this day.
When news stories emerged last year that Cecile was left penniless after being bilked by a son out of what remained of her share of a settlement with the Ontario government, people sent cheques to help her, Tarini said.
The sisters are still close, often deferring to one another during conversation with a “what do you think, sis?”
While they don’t see each other in person often, they talk on the phone several times a day.
The media-shy sisters, who live separately in the Montreal area, were thrust back into the spotlight this year as the fate of their hometurned-museum played out.
In April, the North Bay council voted to relocate the historic log cabin where the quintuplets were born, to a waterfront area a few kilometres away.
Both sisters are urging governments to ensure a consistent source of funding for the building once it is moved. “We need Madame (Heritage Minister Mélanie) Joly to help us make sure this museum stays open and we’ll be happy,” Cecile said.
They argue the home is part of Canadian history and deserves to be recognized as such — calling it a “moral obligation” in a letter they sent to local lawmakers.
“From a historic point of view, it would be good that it be preserved going forward,” Cecile said.
Both the federal government and Ontario said no formal application has been received with regard to funding.
“We are in discussions with the city of North Bay,” said Joly’s spokesperson Pierre-Olivier Herbert.
Jeff Fournier, chair of the Friends of the Dionne Quintuplets Home Museum, said the issue of long-term funding is next on a lengthy to-do list once the relocation is completed sometime in June.
“We do believe that this is a national historic site, the building itself has alot of history that’s relevant, not just to North Bay and Ontario, but to Canada as a whole,” Fournier said.