Established in 2019, the Gilles Paquet Memorial Scholarship Fund was created to celebrate Gilles’ commitment to music education for young musicians in the National Capital Region. The scholarship fund grants a minimum of six annual awards to recipients selected from the Ottawa Youth Symphony and Concert Orchestras (including senior and junior ensembles).

Gilles Paquet was Professor Emeritus at the Telfer School of Management and at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He was also associated to the consulting firm Invenire, and animateur of La maison gouvernance.

He was President of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC – The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada) for a two-year term (2003-2005). He received honorary doctorates from the oldest Canadian university (Université Laval) and from the youngest (Thompson Rivers University) in 2005.

For some 18 years, he taught economics at Carleton University where he also was Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in the 1970s. From 1981 to 1988, he was Dean of the Faculty of Administration (now Telfer School of Management) at the University of Ottawa. He was made a Member of the Royal Society of Arts in 1989, and a member of the Order of Canada in 1992.

Gilles Paquet was active as a journalist on the radio and television network of Radio-Canada, an editorial writer for some 5 years in the print media in the 1990s, and a regular commentator on national affairs on TV Ontario from 1995 to 2006.

He was an avid supporter of music education for youth and greatly enjoyed the learning and performances of his grand-daughters as participants in the Ottawa Youth Orchestra Academy.