SAGUENAY | Does winning the Canada's Got Talent final change the world? If it is too early to decide on the impact that her extraordinary adventure on national television will have on her professional career, it seems certain that the singer from Chicoutimi Jeanick Fournier will remain a warm woman with a heart as big as her native region.

• Read also: Jeanick Fournier signs with Universal Music Canada

• Read also: [VIDEO] Jeanick Fournier wins “Canada's Got Talent”

Barely a few hours spent in her company, in Saguenay, are enough to realize that this admirer of Céline Dion, adoptive mother of two children with Down syndrome and employee of a palliative care home, who touched the country thanks to her powerful voice and her touching personal story, does not have an ounce of pretension in it.

It was even while doing the dishes, with both hands in the kitchen sink, that she began to answer our questions a few days ago, in her modest four-and-a-half-room apartment, located in a charming housing cooperative.

There was no time to waste as he had to pick up his eight-year-old Emma from school for dinner.

“I did warn my close guard, she confides, if you see that I am starting to change too much, do not hesitate to remind me. Its very important. Who I am and my two children is what will always help me keep both feet on the ground. »

immense happiness

That doesn't mean she's not floating on cloud nine. " It is magic. I don't realize it yet. »

Coming to join her at home, her great friend Kathy Fortin, who was by her side during the Canada’s Got Talent final, also saw “tremendous happiness”.

“When I watched her on stage, I saw her whole journey. As a friend, it makes me very emotional because I have known the ups and downs, as well as all that she has experienced with the children, ”says the one who gives her a proud helping hand to take care of Emma and her big brother Yohan, 12 years old.

love everywhere

Since his return from Niagara Falls, Jeanick Fournier has received love like it is not possible. Last weekend, friends threw him a surprise party for his 50th birthday.

Everywhere we followed her, people would spontaneously hug her. As she waited at a red light near her oldest child's school, a woman in a convertible, parked nearby, greeted and warmly congratulated her. A friend she had not seen for a long time, specifies Jeanick Fournier.

At the Palliative Care Center in Saguenay, where the singer has not been able to work for a while, emotions were even stronger when the care coordinator, Karine Girard, reconnected with her great friend during a visit.

In this establishment in the Arvida sector, the fifty or so employees proudly followed his exploits at Canada’s Got Talent.

“At each stage, we were very moved and very happy to see how everything was unfolding for her. It was her dream and we have known for a long time that she is a great lady, ”shares Ms. Girard, while her friend Jeanick, touched by these good words, wipes away a few tears.

The beneficiaries of the premises can be reassured, she will surely find time to return to sing for them.

She dreamed of being a great singer

“I have been singing since I was 7, 8 years old, I started with the Sisters. I dreamed of being a great singer. I saw Céline on the Michel Jasmin show singing It was just a dream and I said: later, mom, I'm going to sing like that. »

Jeanick Fournier may not have had a glorious career like that of her idol, but she still devoted her life to her passion.

Since giving her first shows at the age of 17, the Saguenéenne artist has sung for twenty years in the bars of the province, formed the duo Guy and Jeanick with a former spouse, was part of the show team From Céline à la Bolduc, from Québec Issime, and she has taken over the great successes of Céline Dion on stage, her trademark, for several years.

A real obstacle course. "In the bars, with the fights, I saw all the colors," she recalls.

Even her journey to Canada's Got Talent hasn't been easy. Two months before the final, her former spouse and father of her children, from whom she had been separated for a few years, died. In addition, along the way, she had to undergo an appendectomy.

“We experienced all these emotions,” she sighs while her daughter Emma repeats that her dad is in her heart and in heaven.

Meet Celine

Jeanick Fournier says she learned not to create expectations, but if a good genie came out of a bottle and offered to grant her a wish, she wouldn't hesitate for long.

A one-on-one meeting with Celine Dion, his idol. An opportunity, she says, to discuss among women.

She had had the opportunity to meet her before a concert in Quebec, in 2016, but the meeting had been so brief, the time of a photo, that she had not been able to exchange with Céline.

“I recognize myself in her in her human side. She is inspiring. Seems to me that it would be so simple to sit down and talk together. »