Mr. Speaker, last Saturday, June 11, the 2011 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour was presented at a gala reception at the YMCA Geneva Park Conference Centre near the city of Orillia in my riding.
Each year the Leacock Medal is awarded for the most humourous book published in Canada the previous year. Its winners have included literary icons like Farley Mowat and W.O. Mitchell and contemporary humorists like Terry Fallis and Will Ferguson.
This year, the Leacock Associates have awarded the medal and its $15,000 prize, courtesy of TD Bank Financial Group, to Trevor Cole of Hamilton, Ontario for his recent book, Practical Jean.
I invite members to join in congratulating Mr. Cole for this great achievement. He brings us a work that recalls Leacock's own words on the subject, “Humour is essentially a comforter, reconciling us to things as they are in contrast to things as they might be”.
I congratulate Trevor.