Eleven individuals from Prince Edward Island will be awarded the prestigious Ordre de la Pléiade during a ceremony that will be held at the Delta Prince Edward on July 6. The Pléiade is an order created by the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF) that recognizes the accomplishments of those who have distinguished themselves by promoting the ideals of cooperation and friendship of the APF.
Among the recipients are the Honourable Patrick G. Binns, Premier of Prince Edward Island and the Honourable Gregory J. Deighan, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island. Both will be receiving the Grand Officier award. Premier Binns played a significant role in the proclamation of the French Language Services Act in April 2000. This act ensures the delivery of French language government services to the Acadian and Francophone community of the Island. Four new French schools were opened, in West Prince, Summerside-Miscouche, Rustico and Souris, during the tenure of the Binns government, and the PEI French Language Health Services Network was created as well. As a past Cabinet Minister for Tourism and Aquaculture and Fisheries, and as current Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Deighan continues to be a supporter of the Acadian and Francophone community.
MLA for the Évangéline-Miscouche district and President of the PEI section of the APF, Wilfred J. Arsenault, will be receiving the Officier award. Since 1985, Mr. Arsenault has been heavily involved in the community economic development of Prince Edward Island. As such, he was director of the Société de développement de la Baie acadienne in the Évangéline region. First elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2000, Mr. Arsenault has sat on various committees including the Strategic Planning Committee on Community and Social Policy as well as the Strategic Planning Committee on Economic Policy. Mr. Arsenault has been President of the PEI section of the APF since being elected.
Eight other most deserving Islanders will be receiving the Chevalier award from the APF. They are Noëlla Arsenault, Madeleine Costa, Eileen Chiasson-Pendergast, Antoine Richard and the four members of the musical group Barachois: Albert Arsenault, Charles (Chuck) Arsenault, Louise Arsenault and Hélène Bergeron.
Ms. Noëlla Arsenault was a substitute teacher for many years in various Island schools. She was coordinator of the project Entre Cousins, a play on the deportation of Acadians from PEI. Her most significant contribution to the Acadian and Francophone community of PEI came between 1994 and 2002 while she was president of the parents committee for a French school in Summerside. Along with Ms. Madeleine Costa, they brought a case for the right to education in French all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and won.
Ms. Madeleine Costa has worked for over 20 years in the education field as a French immersion teacher at the elementary and secondary levels. She has also taught French to provincial and federal government employees. Ms. Costa was President of the Board of Directors of La Voix acadienne, the only French newspaper in PEI. As with Ms. Arsenault, her most significant contribution to the Acadian and Francophone community of PEI came between 1994 and 2002 when she was involved with the case that brought the right to education in French all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and won.
Mrs. Eileen Chiasson-Pendergast has been teaching in French on PEI for over 20 years as well. She is one of the pioneers of the French Immersion Program in the province. It is partly because of her involvement that the school in St-Louis was the first ever to offer the French immersion program. She has been a playwright and author of many children’s plays and, in a span of 15 years, wrote and directed seven plays for the V’nez Chou Nous dinner theater.
For his part, Mr. Antoine Richard is a pillar of the Acadian and Francophone community of Prince Edward Island. He was the first ever Community Development Officer with the Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin and was President of the organization on two separate occasions. He has also been involved with the Tourism industry as President of the Association touristique Évangéline. Since 1992, Mr. Richard has been the administrator of La Coopérative Le Chez Nous ltée, a community care facility for seniors in the Évangéline region.
As for the musical group Barachois, members Albert Arsenault, Charles (Chuck) Arsenault, Louise Arsenault and Hélène Bergeron are known for their incredibly dynamic shows, their on-stage antics as well as putting a modern spin on some traditional Acadian songs and music. In 1997, they won an East Coast Music award for best French album and were nominated for a Juno award in 2000 in the roots and traditional music group category. From 1995 on, they performed at the Confederation Centre of the Arts on various stages and from 2001 to 2003 performed on the Mainstage and headlined the centre’s fall lineup. During its nine years of existence, Barachois performed the world over, from France to Norway, Germany to the United States, and was one of the most important ambassadors of Acadian culture worldwide.
“It is a great honour not only for myself but for all recipients to have the ceremony and conference held here in Prince Edward Island,” said the Honourable Gregory J. Deighan, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of PEI. “The APF has 73 different parliaments as members and it may be some time before the international annual conference comes back to the Island.”
The APF is currently holding its annual conference in Charlottetown from July 4 to July 7. The conference is being held in Prince Edward Island for the first time and brings together over 250 French-speaking parliamentarians and high-ranking officials of the Francophonie from around the world.