Mr. Speaker, after a tug-of-war with Telefilm Canada that lasted several years, the long-awaited film by Pierre Falardeau, 15 février 1839 , has finally made it to the silver screen.
This film chronicles the last 24 hours in the lives of two condemned men, Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier and Charles Hindelang. More than that, the film pays homage to the 12 men of Lower Canada who met their deaths on the scaffold at the hands of the vengeful British conquerors, and to all the other men and women who were victims of shame and ostracism, those who fought and were wounded or killed on the battlefield, those who languished in English jails or in cruel exile for daring to hold high the torch of freedom, justice and democracy.
Three days before de Lorimier was hanged, he wrote to a friend expressing the hope that the unfortunate who died on the scaffold to win back his oppressed country would sometimes be recalled to mind.
He did not, perhaps, fully realize that, at the very instant the trap door of the scaffold dropped to plunge him to his death, his name and the names of his unfortunate companions in death would go down in indelible letters in the glorious pantheon of immortal heroes.