Madam Speaker, last week the Canada Council for the Arts announced the recipients of this year's Governor General's Literary Awards.
These awards recognize the best in Canadian fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, children's literature and translation. Through these works Canadians see a reflection of our own hopes and dreams, trials and triumphs. It is through its literature that a society truly expresses itself.
I ask the House to join me in congratulating this year's recipients. In particular, let us congratulate Richard B. Wright, whose book Clara Callan also won the prestigious Giller prize in Toronto last week.
Other winners include: novelist Andrée Michaud, poets George Elliot Clark and Paul Chanel Malenfant, playwrights Kent Stetson and Normand Chaurette, non-fiction authors Thomas Homer-Dixon and Renée Dupuis, children's authors Arthur Slade and Christine Duchesne, illustrators Mireille Levert and Bruce Roberts, and translators Fred Reed, David Homel and Michel Saint-Germain.
We thank each of these authors for enriching our lives through their words and we wish them all the best for the future.