Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to one of Quebec's finest journalists, Olivar Asselin.
A strong nationalist, a brilliant and sarcastic satirist, he had, throughout his career, a profound impact on French Canadians in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Mr. Asselin ardently defended the rights of Franco-Ontarians. He was one of the pillars of the movement by Ontario francophones to fight the ignoble Regulation 17, along with Marie Gérin-Lajoie—mother and daughter.
Even today, many Quebec journalists claim with pride to belong to the Asselin school, and it is not just by chance that the grand prize for journalism offered by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste society of Montreal bears the name Olivar Asselin.
In closing, I would like to pay tribute to the work of Hélène Pelletier-Baillergeon, who with great talent paid homage in her biography of him to a legend of Quebec journalism, and I look forward to reading the second volume of this biography in the near future.