Mr. Speaker, Robert Gauthier, the most illustrious educator in French Ontario, died on March 25, 2001. He was in his 99th year. Mr. Gauthier spent his life promoting education in French in Ontario, at a time when the schools that had survived the infamous Regulation 17 had to start all over again.
A graduate of the universities of Ottawa, Laval, Montreal and Toronto, Mr. Gauthier became a school inspector at age 25 and went on to become Ontario's first provincial director of French education.
Robert Gauthier launched the provincial French competition, the Olympiade de la langue française. He created the Association des enseignants franco-ontariens, and he developed kindergartens, integrated schools and the TAN-GAU method to teach a second language.
The future of French in Ontario was his passion. For Robert Gauthier, it was “a matter of language, a matter of pride”.