Mr. Speaker, today, a Canadian is being inducted into the Académie française for the first time since Cardinal de Richelieu established the institution in 1635. Voted in by his peers on the first ballot, he will be welcomed into the prestigious academy. Dany Laferrière, the great Canadian, Québécois and Haitian writer, will now be one of the 40 immortals.
We can count on the author of The Return to promote both the elegance and the vividness of the French language. In between novels, Mr. Laferrière, a man who writes thought-provoking, stimulating and exciting works, will be celebrating not only the universality of the French language, but also its multiple realities, and reflecting its precision, but also its creative and sensitive side. He is a man of great contrasts who is curious about everything.
Mr. Laferrière will inherit the chair that once belonged to Montesquieu, the author of The Spirit of the Laws, and will be able to share with his fellow immortals how it feels to bask in the Caribbean sun and live through a Canadian winter.
Congratulations, Dany Laferrière. Canada owes you a great debt of gratitude.