Hon. Scott Tannas: Honourable senators, I rise to pay tribute to the late Jean Lapointe, a senator from Saurel, Quebec. He was an actor, singer, comedian and philanthropist before later becoming a senator. He was a true artist in every sense of the word.

He began his career in the arts playing characters in Quebec cabarets in the fifties, and became half of the comedic group Les Jérolas until 1974. He was also a movie and TV star with 36 acting credits, including playing Maurice Duplessis in a TV miniseries in 1978, showing that he was clearly destined to be in politics later in life. As a singer-songwriter, he recorded 18 albums, and wrote and performed some classic music known to an entire generation of young, school-aged francophones across Canada.

Throughout his life, Jean Lapointe battled personal demons with addiction. In 1982, an addiction treatment centre in Montreal was renamed La Maison Jean Lapointe for which he was a board member. To support the centre, the Jean Lapointe Foundation was founded, and today supports youth centres in Montreal and Trois-Rivières. These centres have treated over 38,000 individuals with addictions.

He was named to the Senate in 2001 and sat in this place until 2010. His personal background dominated his work in the Senate, where he introduced numerous bills to limit the location of video lottery terminals — which are highly addictive to some — to locations where gambling already occurs such as casinos and racetracks.

Senator Lapointe was an Officer of the Order of Canada. His passing is a loss for Quebec, for the arts community and for francophones across Canada.