Madam Speaker, last Saturday the 2010 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour was presented at a gala reception near the city of Orillia, the home of the Leacock Museum.
Each year, the Leacock medal is awarded for the most humorous book published in Canada in the previous year. Its winners have included literary icons, such as W.O. Mitchell and Mordecai Richler, and contemporary humorists, such as Stuart McLean and Arthur Black.
This year, the Leacock Associates have awarded the medal and its $15,000 prize, courtesy of TD Bank Financial Group, to Will Ferguson for his recent book Beyond Belfast. In so doing, Will becomes the fifth author to win the Leacock a third time.
I invite members to join me in congratulating Will Ferguson for this great achievement, because we recognize, as Leacock himself did when he wrote, “Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself--it is the occurring that is difficult”.
I congratulate Will.