Mr. Speaker, last week Heather and I attended the 70th annual Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour awards in Orillia, Ontario. Orillia, after all, is Leacock's fictional Mariposa, from his famous novel, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
The Stephen Leacock medal is awarded to the best literary work of humour by a Canadian author, and some of Canada's best have received it: Mordecai Richler, W.O. Mitchell, Will Ferguson, and Terry Fallis, to name a few.
This year the Leacock Associates have awarded the medal to Gary Barwin, of Hamilton, Ontario, for his novel Yiddish for Pirates, the same work that put him with the finalists for last year's Governor General's Literary Award and the Giller Prize.
I would like to thank the Leacock Associates and TD Financial Group for recognizing another outstanding contribution to Canadian literature. I invite all hon. members to join me in congratulating the 2017 winner of the Leacock medal for humour, Gary Barwin.