Mr. Speaker, on March 26, the night of the Oscar awards the people of greater Trois-Rivières swelled with pride.
Bernard Lajoie, the son of one of Trois-Rivières' best known families, gained world recognition for his work when the film The Old Man and the Sea , which he produced with Tatsuo Shimamura of Japan and Alexander Petrov of Russia, was awarded an Oscar as best animated short.
In addition, having won the Jutras award for the best film in its category a month ago, this work, inspired by Ernest Hemingway, is destined to have a brilliant international future. Indeed, it is already playing in four languages, and some twenty countries are expected to soon fall under the spell of this Quebec production.
It is therefore with pride that the people of Trois-Rivières and the Mauricie will welcome Bernard Lajoie himself, who will honour us with his presence at a showing of his film at the Trois-Rivières ciné-campus.