Mr. Speaker, on April 17, 2007, the Outaouais lost a dedicated volunteer, Ms. Rita Trépanier, who passed away after several months of battling cancer.
Rita was a spirited woman, who was always there to help those around her and who was convinced that Quebec would one day be a country. Treasurer of the Bloc Québécois, member of the Société nationale des Québécois et des Québécoises de l'Outaouais, she was an active participant in election campaigns, in addition to volunteering for the hot air balloon festival, meals on wheels, the tax clinic and Operation Red Nose. In fact, that is where I saw her for the last time, last December. She was a woman of many talents.
I would like to tell her family and friends, and her sovereignist family, that our hearts are with them. A few days before her death, she said the first thing she would do in the afterlife would be to say hello to René Lévesque. Believe me, this woman of action will hasten to do so.