Mr. Speaker, literature is the reflection of a country's soul. When writers gain international renown, both their work and their country are honoured.
The Nobel Prize in Literature awarded last week was the first for a Canadian female writer and also the first for truly exceptional, truly Canadian work.
Alice Munro's stories are stories of daily life. They are stories of Ontario, stories of a small town and a long street, stories of Huron County and elsewhere that are told to us by the best short story writer in the world.
My colleague for London—Fanshawe said that Alice Munro shows us essential truths about ourselves, that there are no ordinary lives, no mundane experiences. Every life is an extraordinary and astonishing one. Some lives are lived by those who make exceptional contributions to their country, our society, and the written word.
I rise in the House today to congratulate Alice Munro for her career, her work, her words and a Nobel Prize in Literature.