Canada's Poet Laureate

Who is Canada's Poet Laureate? I'm glad you asked, and, actually, you asked a trick question. Canada doesn't have a Poet Laureate, per se; it has a Parliamentary Poet Laureate--an important distinction, or so I infer, because the parliament decides who fills the post, as opposed to the prime minister, or in the case of the U.S., the president, or at least the Executive Branch.

Answer: Pierre DesRuisseaux

Here's a bit of information about DesRuisseaux:

Regarding Pierre DesRuisseaux

"Born in Sherbrooke, in the Eastern Townships, in 1945, Pierre DesRuisseaux graduated from the Université de Montréal in philosophy. He was successively an editorial writer for regional and national weeklies, including Le petit journal, a proofreader and a foreign correspondent (Middle East) for the magazine Sept-Jours.

Mr DesRuisseaux has published 14 collections of his poetry. His first book of poems, Lettres, published by Hexagone in 1979, was greeted as a revelation in Quebec’s literary world. In 1989, Monème earned Canada’s highest literary honour, the Governor General’s Award.

Another of his books, Le Noyau, was described by Louise Proulx in Livres et auteurs québécois as an extraordinary mingling of philosophy, semantics, literature, politics and poetry."

The information comes from the following site:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/Poet/index.asp?lang=e¶m=2