MAKING PEACE WITH THE PAST
Grateful former fitness club owner Al Quesnel gives away millions and puts his latest troubles behind him, Dave Battagello writes.
It was a night of drunken stupidity, Al Quesnel admits.
Arrested six days later to face charges that included pointing a firearm and making a death threat, the multimillionaire philanthropist and fitness club chain owner spent the second weekend of 2014 in the decrepit Windsor Jail.
He was arrested on a Friday when there was not enough time for a bail hearing, so he couldn’t be released from the old Brock Street jail until Monday. Quesnel was furious. “They put me in that (expletive) hole on the west end,” he says 2½ years later from the comfort of his mansion in rural Amherstburg. “They shacked me with two guys who stunk like hell. I spent three days in jail for breaking a windshield on a car I bought.”
At the time, he says, he resigned himself to his jailhouse weekend by recalling the ordeal of former South African president Nelson Mandela, the world’s most famous political prisoner.
“He had it a lot worse,” Quesnel says. “He spent 20 years in jail for doing nothing. It’s all in perspective. I just thought back to Haiti or other poor countries where people really have nothing.”
Quesnel was eventually acquitted in June this year of charges laid against him for allegedly pointing a gun and threatening a man he once considered a trusted friend. In the end, he was convicted only of mischief for smashing the car windshield.
Still, it was a blow for the 47-yearold self-made businessman who lives on a 50-acre manicured estate and estimates he has donated more than $8 million to charities and other causes.
“Tell me one person who hasn’t drank too much and not done something stupid,” he says philosophically of the episode that could have put him behind bars for years. He’s moved on. Retired after selling his shares in the fitness club, Quesnel spends a lot of time alone these days in his large stucco house.
A fierce drive to succeed and the ability to move on have made him wealthy. Those same traits, however, have cost him friends and led to nasty confrontations. They also couldn’t insulate him from the pain of losing his father at a young age and the emotional struggle of once having a daughter in his life who he no longer sees.
Alan Joseph Quesnel was born in Windsor and raised in the city core. His parents split up when he was two years old, after which he and his brother, Rick, who is 15 months older, were raised by their mom.
They moved into a house on Parent Avenue with Quesnel’s grandparents. There they stayed for a decade until his mom, a bank teller, was able to afford her own home two blocks away.
Quesnel attended the former St. Genevieve School and then Kennedy Collegiate high school.
He described himself as a “decent” student academically who never played sports aside from a few years of little league baseball.
His dad Reggie was “a workaholic,” he said. After his parents split up, he rarely saw his father, who worked for a Detroit television station, drove cabs on weekends and operated a local variety store, as well as moving between other part-time jobs, Quesnel said.
When Quesnel was seven years old, he and his brother were paired up with male adult mentors through Big Brothers. Several times a month until he turned 18, Quesnel spent time with Kirk Windibank.
“He was always happy, just a welladjusted boy,” Windibank recalled. “He always had a perpetual smile.”
Even his father’s murder “never seem to weigh him down.”
Reggie Quesnel’s body was discovered in September 1979 at a Tilbury rest stop off Highway 401. He’d been stabbed multiple times.
“I was only 11 years old,” Quesnel said. “I was delivering papers and it was all over the front page for a week or two.”
Star stories at the time described his father as an accountant working as a tool and die company truck driver who had lost $40,000 in a real estate deal gone bad.
Leigh Ziegler, a co-worker at the tool shop, was convicted in 1981 of committing the execution-style murder after a scheme the two cooked up to import and sell 250 kilograms of marijuana went sour.
Reggie Quesnel’s only surviving brother, Bernard, committed suicide five weeks after Ziegler’s conviction. The older brother also worked at the tool shop and was riddled with guilt for having introduced the two.
“It was tragic,” Al said of his father’s murder. “But at 11, it’s not something you are able to comprehend. If I was living with him all the time, I would be more devastated than I was.
“It’s probably something I bury inside and don’t deal with. I can’t change it. I just try to cope with it the best I can.”
By the time is father was murdered, Quesnel had already started working. He had a couple of newspaper delivery routes, cut lawns, shovelled snow and did odd jobs for neighbours.
His mom did what she could financially for the family, “but nobody was buying me anything, so I figured if I wanted something I would have to work for it myself,” he said.
He was an ambitious “go-getter” even as a child, said his mother, Sylvia Quesnel, who has shared her son’s joy and pride in his success and pain over those she says have sometimes taken advantage of him.
“He was a really good kid, always thoughtful and generous,” she said. “But it wasn’t easy for us at times. Making money was important to him. I never stopped him.”
One of Quesnel’s first major purchases, at age 11, was a snowblower, so he could earn more money.
By age 13, he was clearing tables at the nearby Franco’s restaurant, one of the city’s most popular eateries in the 1980s. Despite his age, he impressed his employer enough to have cash handling added to his duties.
Quesnel became interested in fitness and bodybuilding when he was 16. He joined the YMCA and then moved on to the Powerhouse Gym on Walker Road, which at the time was regarded as the premier location for weightlifters in the Windsor area.
By age 18, he had a part-time job at Powerhouse.
After high school, Quesnel completed the two-year law and security program at St. Clair College.
He had dreams of joining Windsor’s fire or police department, but couldn’t get in. So he started working in construction for a local homebuilder, while still hanging onto his job at Powerhouse.
Quesnel, who is five-foot-nine, had become so immersed in bodybuilding he was entering competitions. He was crowned Mr. Windsor when he was 21.
“It was one of the better days of my life,” he said. “I was the youngest on stage. All the other guys were 25 or 30.”
But he looked around at his fellow competitors, most of whom he believed were taking steroids, and decided to quit.
“I wasn’t into drugs and there was no money in it, so I hung up my hat,” he said.
Making money became his priority. Soon afterwards, Quesnel became a manager at Powerhouse.
The gym was so successful, the owners decided to move to a larger location at a shopping plaza at the corner of Dougall Avenue and Cabana Road. They wanted Quesnel to be primary manager of the new location.
The young man, who had banked a tidy sum from all his jobs dating back to his teen years, demanded and was granted a piece of the ownership. “I was making good money in construction, but the chance to work indoors doing what I love was more attractive than slugging cement,” he said.
The new Powerhouse location was renamed Total Fitness. Membership jumped from just over 600 to 2,000. Within a couple of years, Quesnel was an equal partner in the business. He bought out the others in the years that followed and became the club’s sole owner. He opened more locations, including one in Amherstburg.
By the time, Quesnel sold Total Fitness in 2001 for $2.5 million to businessman Barry Zekelman, the club’s membership had reached 5,000, he said.
But his financial success was not limited to Total Fitness.
In 1997, Quesnel joined forces with David Wu, owner of Spartan Nutrition. They started a gym in London called The Athletic Club, which also quickly took off in popularity. Two more locations were added within two years.
Around the same time, Quesnel made some investments in the restaurant and bar business, including Jack Astor’s in London and Koko Pellies in Windsor.
Quesnel was in the midst of building his health club business when he had a three-year relationship with a local woman that changed his life.
He was around 30 years old when they broke up, he said. “Then I got a phone call.”
The woman came to his home and informed him she was pregnant. The relationship was over, but Quesnel accepted that the baby girl was his daughter.
For nine years, he spent at least a couple of days a week with the girl and supported her financially, he said. But he was bothered enough by a “funny feeling” that he had a DNA test done in 2009 that showed she was not his biological child.
He said lawyers advised him he could still pursue legal status as her father. However, if he was successful, he would likely have to pay $5,000 to $10,000 a month in child support to her mother.
“I had to make a difficult decision,” he said. “In my head, I thought this would not be good for me — and maybe not good for my daughter. I thought it best to just walk away and if she wants to come back later in my life, my door will always be open.”
He remains bitter that the woman who made him believe for years he was a father has never apologized. “You don’t live a lie like that,” he said.
Quesnel has not seen or spoken to the girl in more than seven years, yet can’t help referring to her as his own. “Since I couldn’t be with my daughter, maybe that has played a part in me supporting thousands of other kids (through charity donations) instead,” he said.
By 2011, Quesnel and Wu had brought other investors into The Athletic Club chain. It had grown to 11 locations in London, Kitchener, Guelph, Brantford, Amherstburg, Kingsville, Thunder Bay and Ottawa with more than 60,000 members. Quesnel decided it was time to get out and began three years of unsuccessful negotiations with his partners to sell his shares.
“Things got ugly. They got angry,” he said. “We worked together fantastic from 1997 until 2014. It was a good run, but then money gets involved. I’m on one side of the fence and they are on the other.”
Among those on the other side was his brother, Rick, a partner in the business. They have been very close since they were boys, but the battle over the shares briefly put some distance between them, Quesnel admits. “It was a long, tedious process, but we are still close.”
The same cannot be said for Wu, who did not return messages left by the Star.
Quesnel finally sold his stake in the company — now known as Movati Athletic — in 2014 after U.S. firm Northwest Equity Partners got involved. It now has the controlling interest in the business.
Quesnel claims the deal made him “$10 million more than we could have amicably approved between ourselves.”
The $20 million currently sitting in his charitable foundation is about half the proceeds of that sale, he said.
It was following the 2001 sale of Total Fitness that Quesnel felt his wealth was secure enough to start giving back in a major way.
“I’d always given $1,000 here or there,” he said. “I was blessed to be so fortunate, but how much money does one person need?”
He grew interested in the efforts of Windsor-based Hearts Together for Haiti and made his first trip to the impoverished island nation.
“I saw how deplorable the conditions were with people living with no furniture or electricity,” Quesnel said.
He gave $125,000 to the local charity, which was led by Windsor priest Rev. John Duarte, to build two schools.
“(Following construction) I saw 600 kids going to school that would not normally be able to do so,” he said. “I fell in love with the people. I wanted to do more.”
Through the charity, he began sponsoring families in Haiti. During visits that followed, he would often pick out families at random and pay to have a small house built for them.
Then in 2006, Duarte was arrested and charged with sexually abusing boys in Haiti. Hearts Together for Haiti’s board had to scramble and put Duarte’s assistant, a Brazilian named Josanias (Jo) Barbosa, in charge. That didn’t last long and soon Quesnel was in control. He said local Haitians wanted nothing to do with Barbosa because of his relationship with Duarte and ran him out of the area.
In 2008 court documents, Hearts Together for Haiti accused Quesnel of “instigating an uprising” to gain control of the charity. Quesnel countered that thousands of people in Haiti would have been left stranded if he hadn’t taken over after Barbosa fled.
The court battle dragged on until a settlement was reached on Oct. 26, 2012. Neither side will talk about it.
On the outs with Hearts Together for Haiti, Quesnel found a new partner to channel his donations.
Rev. Tom Harmon, a pastor at Kingsville Community Church, remembers a congregation member introducing him to Quesnel in 2007.
“I met him and liked what he had to say about his vision for building homes (in Haiti),” Harmon said.
Quesnel donated to the church, which set up a non-profit mission in Haiti that has led to the construction of dozens of homes.
“It’s not Canadians going there to help,” said Harmon, who has been to Haiti three times. “Al uses people in the community to build these homes. He has done so much down there for the local economy.”
He described Quesnel as a new breed of hands-on philanthropist who wants to be involved in how his money is spent.
He counts Quesnel as a “good friend” with whom he has shared “some deep conversations.”
Still, the church recently decided to end its eight-year partnership with Quesnel. Harmon won’t blame Quesnel’s recent troubles with the law, but acknowledged he “does draw attention to himself.”
“Our association has gone on a lot longer than anticipated,” Harmon said. “Al is planning his own foundation (for work in Haiti). It’s been great working with the guy, but setting up his own foundation is probably for the best.”
Quesnel says faith and spirituality have seen him through his darkest hours.
The foundation was set during his childhood when he attended Catholic mass every weekend at Sacred Heart Church. He also served as altar boy for four years.
His faith was solidified and made large when he saw the poverty in Haiti, he said. “I feel a direction from our Lord and Saviour to help those less fortunate, those who need help the most.”
Those beliefs set the table for the first $1.25 million Quesnel handed over to save crumbling historic Assumption Church, which the Diocese of London accepted and spent on urgent repairs.
When Quesnel attempted to give another $3.5 million, the diocese hesitated. After he was charged criminally in 2014, it rejected the offer — which involved an unnamed silent partner who would cover the $10 million required to save the church.
The church remains shuttered and Quesnel says he’s done with it. “It embarrassed me. I have moved on to other organizations.”
Quesnel said he first met Evariste Ufitinema during a night out in downtown Windsor in 2007.
“I thought he was a decent guy and became friends,” he said.
He gave the Rwandan man odd jobs that eventually included helping out in Haiti in the midst of the charity crisis.
“He was there to make sure people were not stealing money from the charity,” Quesnel said. “He was my eyes and ears down there for a year and a half.”
He also gave Ufitinema money to go on vacation and help his extended family in Rwanda.
When Ufitinema returned to Windsor in 2010, Quesnel said they parted ways when he “saw a different side” of Ufitinema, who kept hounding him for money.
He did not hear from Ufitinema again until the evening of Jan. 4, 2014. “He called me out of the blue,” Quesnel said. “It was around the holidays. He caught me on a night I was by myself and had a few.”
Ufitinema came out to his Amherstburg home where the two “got into some vodka,” which led to a “drunken, stupid night,” Quesnel said. They decided to make the trek into Windsor to the Studio Four strip club. Quesnel did not want to leave his aging mastiff behind because it had just undergone $6,000 in surgery.
The pair packed the 150-pound dog into the back seat of Ufitinema’s compact car — which Quesnel had purchased for him — and cooked up a plan that Quesnel would pretend to be blind at the strip club so the dog could go inside with him.
It was at some point during the drive in from Amherstburg that Ufitinema, who had been asking repeatedly that night for money, again demanded cash, Quesnel said. (Ufitinema’s version of events at Quesnel’s trial was that the businessman was angry they got lost driving into Windsor.)
Quesnel said he was so infuriated that he punched, not kicked as testified by his accuser, the windshield.
“It was one shot,” he said. “I did not mean to break it. Maybe because it was so cold, but who knows why it broke.”
Ufitinema testified that later the same night the wealthy businessman put a shotgun in his mouth after firing it into the air a couple of times. But video footage captured on Quesnel’s home surveillance system contradicted Ufitinema’s version of events.
At the conclusion of the highprofile trial, as Quesnel stood in the courthouse hallway waiting for the jury to decide his fate, he handed an envelope to a local lawyer who operates a homeless residence for men. Inside was a cheque for $100,000.
Greg Goulin — president of the Windsor Residence for Young Men — was stunned.
“He just told me he got a fair shake (in court). That he was blessed no matter what the verdict,” Goulin said. “He felt that he was treated fairly and wants others to be, as well.”
It was the third $100,000 cheque Goulin had received from Quesnel to support his residence, which helps young men get off the streets and provides them with skills to turn their lives around.
Quesnel shrugged off the timing of his courthouse gesture.
“I am a little different — a bit eccentric at times,” he said.
While many live paycheque-topaycheque, he can afford whatever he desires, Quesnel said. “So, I figure I will give half of what I have away and that still leaves me plenty of money to do what I want.
“It’s been a very good life. There have been some ups and downs, but I look at what other people have to go through compared to me and it’s a real eye-opener.”