Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I am speaking to you and to all members and friends of Benoît Sauvageau's family who are here with us today.
I would like to mention the sadness, but also the great pride, I feel in paying tribute to a man who was one of our own. I refer to Benoît Sauvageau as one of our own; however, first and foremost he was a husband, father, son and friend.
I would like once again to express my condolences to them and tell them how proud they can be. They can be proud of him as the elected representative of the people of Repentigny. They can be proud of him for his work in the House of Commons, in the committees, in the Bloc Québécois caucus and in all the activities that are part of the daily life of a member of Parliament.
As such, he served on three standing committees, and some pretty important ones at that. Until very recently, he was on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts where, through his conscientious work, he defended the bond of trust between Canadians and their institutions. He was also on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, a crucial area if ever there was one, because it deals with our relations with the world. He was also a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, a key issue for the nation of Quebec as well as Canadian francophones and Acadians.
He worked tirelessly on all these committees, with great fervour and conviction but always with the natural elegance for which he was known. He carried the ball on a host of files for the Bloc Québécois, ranging from international trade to public accounts and Treasury Board, not to forget amateur sport and the Francophonie. He was also the deputy whip on our team. In all these duties, he earned the respect of everyone here.
He did all this and I am grateful to him for it, I thank him, but he did much more than his job as a member of Parliament. He embodied in his discreet, cheerful way all the humanity we need in our line of work.
The debates we hold in this place are often very intense. Benoît had the ability to engage in vigorous debate while always being scrupulously respectful of others. He was known less for his brilliant achievements or cutting rejoinders than for his great humanity. The numerous tributes we have heard from all the other parties are proof of that.
I had the feeling that these tributes were very sincere. We in the Bloc were deeply moved by them and I thank everyone.
Disagreements with political foes are normal and even desirable in a democracy. Despite these differences, though, Benoît managed the great feat of making himself respected and even loved by all the political foes who got to know him well without ever compromising his convictions and principles.
Like all of us, Benoît was not perfect. For example, his eldest daughter revealed just a little while ago that he never did master the agreement of past participles in French. He was not perfect, but he had remarkable humanity, and it is this memory of Benoît, a man of great humanity, that will remain etched in our memories. We will all miss him very much. We already do.