Good morning everyone. How are you? You look fabulous in this room. I can see those smiles. It is a truly special day for all of us, as we bring this milestone in your life together with a really important milestone in the life of the city and the country – the start of the 100-day countdown to the Pan Am Games, the largest sporting event in the history of this city.
I think it’s going to be the largest in the history of the country, in terms of the sheer number of athletes. These are wonderful milestones to be celebrating together. Thank you for coming here. Thank you for bringing your families and friends together, to allow us to mark this important step in your lives together as a group.
I’m particularly delighted to be here with Judge Albert Wong, who was with me in Afghanistan. He is a fantastic representative of citizenship, just as he served this country brilliantly with thousands of others in Afghanistan and in other parts of the world. I’m also delighted to be here with my friend, Michael Coteau, who was Ontario’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration until recently.
We had the pleasure of working on those issues, trying to make a great immigration system for Canada and for Ontario even better. Now he’s leading the charge for tourism and, above all, for this great celebration.
It’s also great to be here with Catriona (Ann Le May), who is a true Canadian hero. I am in awe just to be on the same platform with you and also with Saad (Rafi). Congratulations to you and all of the achievements so far in the life of these Games, making this infrastructure a reality, recruiting so many volunteers and generating the excitement that we all sense here today.
As your Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, I am truly excited every time I am at one of these ceremonies and this one has special meaning for all of us because of the backdrop, because of the context. In just a few short months, we will welcome over 7,000 athletes from the Americas and the Caribbean. Throughout these Parapan Am Games, Canada’s flag will fly proudly, and that’s a particularly big one at the back of the hall as our athletes compete and win.
As Canadians, we’re proud of the role sports play in bringing individuals together, demonstrating our unity in diversity, demonstrating our determination to live well together, to live purposefully together under the law, whatever our backgrounds. We celebrate those different backgrounds. We celebrate each of your stories today, just as we celebrate what brings us together as Canadians under that flag.
These games are the perfect showcase for Canada’s cultural diversity, for the strength of our citizenship as well as our athletic and artistic talents. It’s truly moving to be able to welcome you all as new members of the Canadian family at this venue, the heart of this athletes’ village. In many ways, you have traveled a path that is familiar to Canada’s athletes.
You’ve struggled and overcome difficulties. You’ve made sacrifices, endured hardship. I don’t know how many of you have put on tight-fitting clothing and gone out on to an ice oval in minus 30 degrees as Catriona did for many years, but you’ve done the equivalent in your separate ways, traveling the path from your countries of origin, often through third and fourth countries, often fleeing conflict and persecution to be part of this family, this Canadian family that welcomes you so warmly.
Perhaps in a few years some of you will represent Canada as athletes. Canada is a place where we can all dream big on this enormous territory, but also thanks to the imagination that has always loomed large in the lives of Canadians. And when we dream big, we can also be confident that your dreams can come true. Think of the young man born 200 years ago this January. We just celebrated his birth two months ago, who came to Kingston Ontario at the age of five.
I don’t think his family had much. They worked hard to get him a grammar school education. He apprenticed as a lawyer. A couple of decades later, he was the principal architect of our confederation; the national institutions that still bind us together. You know his name. Sir John A. Macdonald. Today, half of us in this city of Toronto were not born in this country.
Even a group as large as yours embraces more than a quarter of the nations of the world. Our story is one of immigration and it is one of success because of immigration. These Games will be part of celebrating that story, inspiring us to be better citizens. The athletes’ hard work and dedication help motivate Canadians across the country to work towards their dreams through honest hard work.
Today, you should feel very fortunate. When you take the oath of citizenship you are making a commitment to our system of government, to our laws. You are saying Canada is now your country.
You’re taking responsibility as a citizen, as we all do as citizens for its future. You are joining many who came before us, shaping our history and institutions, our communities, asserting and shaping our shared values and responsibilities, defending our many freedoms and privileges.
As we approach the 150th anniversary of confederation, we’re reminded of moments in our history that shaped this great nation and the people we are today. Some of them were hard moments. We just celebrated at the end of last year, 200 years since the end of the War of 1812, the Treaty of Ghent which gave us peace between Canada and the United States for two centuries.
A hundred years ago, thousands of young men from this country were already in the mud of France and Belgium waiting to go into battle which happened in April of 1915, where they faced poison gas, unspeakable casualties, totally unexpected at that time and a shock to the nation. Sixty years ago, Europe was facing the horrors of Nazism. Ten years ago, Albert and I were in Afghanistan, taking on the Taliban. And today, there are still threats in the world and Canada still has responsibilities to face them, as an important member of the international community.
There have also been so many great stories of success in building this country, stories of exploration of this enormous territory, including the exploration that continues today through science and research, the story of securing our borders, of making this a peaceful and justice-oriented country, the story of winning responsible government, winning the right to vote for men and then, later at last, for women, the struggle to secure French language rights not only in Quebec but across the country, the story of women’s rights. We need to protect women and all people from domestic violence, from forced marriage, from early marriage.
The story of our infrastructure, building canals and railways and subways, all the stories that have brought us our prosperity – that is yours today. Together, we carry the torch of these early Canadians and these modern success stories. Our citizenship is a deep commitment that represents our loyalty to Canada, to the stories that have built Canada.
It’s a pledge of mutual responsibility, to be responsible to one another as well as to those who came before us and the future generations, to leave this country in better shape than we found it, as the motto of the Order of Canada says, because we all desire an even better country. When you choose to become citizens, you promise to take all of these things forward, to build on these foundations.
With that in mind, I encourage you to become active citizens, to give back to your communities. While our responsibilities at work and to our families are vitally important and often seem to take up all the time we have, it’s what we do beyond these that makes a real difference in our communities. Volunteer. As Albert said, give to charities, be engaged in local issues that matter to your community. Come on out to cheer on our athletes in the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games, participate in local activities.
Although our country is vast, it’s made up of many small communities and it has an unrivaled slice of the world’s nature and wilderness. Get to know it. Make sure that you don’t feel at home only in this city, but everywhere in this country including in its most remote parts. Our success as a nation depends on the ability of these communities to thrive. By giving back to others and those less fortunate, you will strengthen your community, your province and your country.
You live in a country where respect and dignity for all is a priority, and it is your duty to proudly bear witness to what citizenship represents—a nation that is strong, proud and free. When you take the oath today you’re inheriting this great legacy. As with many Canadians, you will continue and you should continue to have ties to where you come from but, today, in this great YMCA centre, in this great athletes’ village, in this city of Toronto and in this great country – you are home.
Thank you very much.
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