François-Xavier Garneau (June 15, 1809 – February 2 or February 3, 1866)[1] was a nineteenth-century French Canadian notary, poet, civil servant and liberal who wrote a three-volume history of the French Canadian nation entitled Histoire du Canada between 1845 and 1848.

Garneau was born in Quebec City and in 1821 he entered a school which had been opened in the basement of the chapel of the Congrégation des Hommes de la Haute Ville.

Garneau was an honorary member of literary and historical societies in the United States and Canada, and for several years president of the Institut Canadien of Quebec.

The book was originally written as a response to the Durham report, which claimed that French Canadian culture was stagnant and that it would be best served through Anglophone assimilation.

[5] Canadian actor Donald Sutherland narrated the following quote from one of his poems at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.