Mr. Speaker, on Friday, January 13, the Acadian village of Cheticamp and in fact all of Acadia lost a giant of a man in the person of Yvon Deveau, who lost his life in a highway tragedy.
Teacher at the NDA school, frontline fighter for Nova Scotia Acadians, manager of the Coopérative des pêcheurs-he wore all these hats and many more. I worked with Yvon on a number of occasions-on the thorny question of monitoring fishing practices and on the importance of crab fishing. He was always concerned for the development of his community and the welfare of other people.
On the day he died, he was coming from a meeting in Moncton in another effort to rescue the fishing industry from crisis and to save jobs in his native village.
On Wednesday, another Acadian, the Right Hon. Roméo LeBlanc, Governor General of Canada, paid tribute to the extraordinary courage of Canadians.
Yvon Deveau's devotion and community spirit were examples of such courage.