Mr. Speaker, exactly 400 years ago today, there were two canoes travelling up the river behind your chair. They were approaching the Chaudière Falls, which the locals called Asticou, a spiritual place and portage point.
Among those voyageurs was a man from Brouage, in Saintonge. He was a royal representative in Canada and a seasoned adventurer and cartographer who made good use of his astrolabe.
A few days later, on Allumette Island, he met with Tessouat, chief of the Kichesipirini, the people of “the great river”. The chief was a great orator and a keen strategist, who at the time imposed customs duties on navigators. He would later allow the French to travel deeper into the country by opening the route to the Great Lakes, the Upper Country and the west.
However, this French voyageur had already left his mark on our country as a key figure in the history of Acadia, as the founder of Quebec City, by inspiring the settlement of Montreal and by establishing New France.
The day before yesterday, at Westminster, our Prime Minister was right to call the man who helped found our country “our first governor”.
Let us celebrate that man who was travelling up the river behind you 400 years ago. Let us celebrate Samuel de Champlain.