Mr. Speaker, I would like to celebrate the retirement of an Alouette who refuses to have his feathers ruffled. Marc‑Antoine Dequoy is retiring after leaving his mark on the Montreal Alouettes. Although he was a defensive back in the team that won the 2023 Grey Cup against all odds, the broader public recently got to know him better through his appearances on television. The charismatic Marc‑Antoine Dequoy, who also previously played for the Carabins, has shown that he is just as comfortable in the media as in the fourth quarter of a challenging game.
He was the Alouettes' ambassador to Quebeckers within a team that is making a real effort to promote the French language in a unilingual English environment. Of course, we cannot forget his impassioned plea during the Grey Cup, as he stood up for his team and for all Quebeckers. Having just won a Canadian championship within a heavily anglophone environment, he was very vocal in saying out loud what all francophones were thinking in a passionate speech that could have summed up Quebec's history: “Nobody believed in us, but look at us now! You can keep your English!”