Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House to offer my sincere congratulations on behalf of all my colleagues to Mr. Luc Plamondon, one of three Quebec recipients of the 1996 Governor General's Performing Arts Award.
At the press conference where the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards were announced, Luc Plamondon commented that he looked on this award he was about to receive as an attempt to bring Canada's two solitudes closer together.
Like him, we feel that bringing the French Canadian and English Canadian communities of this country closer together will, needless to say, promote the preservation and development of our cultural identity as Canadians.
We share this vision of cultural development in Canada and are striving to promote the talents of all Canadian artists who are a credit to this country.