Joseph Quesnel (15 November 1746 – 2 or 3 July 1809) was a French Canadian composer, poet, and playwright. Among his works were two operas, Colas et Colinette and Lucas et Cécile; the former is considered to be the first Canadian opera. He died of pleurisy at Montreal in 1809 several months after he had dived into the Saint Lawrence River to save a drowning child. Quesnel was the subject of the comic opera Le Père des amours, written by Eugène Lapierre in 1942.