Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean
Speech on the Occasion of the Arrival at La Citadelle
La Citadelle, Wednesday, February 8, 2006
It is with great emotion and pride that I find myself before you today on my first official visit to Quebec as Governor General of Canada. I would like to begin by saying to you, the members of the Royal 22e Régiment, just how honoured I am to be here with you today. I know that you have interrupted your training—training that will no doubt stand you in good stead should you be deployed abroad—to welcome me to La Citadelle, and I thank you most sincerely for this.
For my husband Jean-Daniel Lafond and me, Quebec will forever be the place where we first put down our roots in this country. Its language and culture have made it unique in the Americas, and my husband and I have always been committed to preserving this uniqueness and ensuring its place in the Francophonie and the world. I would also add that Quebec is not simply the place where Jean-Daniel, our daughter Marie-Éden and I put down our roots; more than anything else, it is our home.
My mother, sister and I first came to know this country in the grip of winter when we arrived in February 1967 to start our lives over, safe at last from dictatorship and horror. And it was in February, during Carnival, that I visited Québec City for the first time. I had only ever known the carnivals of Haiti and was enchanted to discover this celebration of snow and winter, one that I have never outgrown. And here I am once again in Québec City in February as governor general, as if to remind me that this month holds a special place in my own history and integration into this country that would become my home.
And here I am once again in Québec City in February as governor general, as if to remind me that this month holds a special place in my own history and integration into this country that has become my home. And yet another wonderful coincidence: February is also Black History Month. For me, each visit to Québec City is an opportunity to reconnect with a history. A moving history. Our history. It is a history that belongs to each and every one of us; it is unfolding before our very eyes, here atop Cap Diamant. It is the history of the First Nations. The history of North American francophones.
It is also the history of the Irish immigrants who fled the famine in their homeland and found refuge on our shores on this side of the Atlantic. It is the history of citizens from every corner of the globe who have come here to enrich and expand our understanding and experience of the world itself. It is the history of an entire continent, written right here. One might imagine the hope that these lands represented to those crossing the great ocean. That same hope continues to inspire those who continue to make that journey. The same hope that we must keep alive for as many people as possible.
Québec City is the point where two worlds meet: Europe and North America. It is the very heartland of Canadian Francophonie, a city recognized as a jewel of humanity by UNESCO. While it quietly echoes with the memory of our collective history, this city also speaks to us of a resounding fellowship on which today’s Canada is based. All around you stands a city, a society keeping pace with the world, working tirelessly to carve out a place where each and every individual can make a unique contribution to our united strength. A place where living together speaks louder than the exclusion that pushes so many into isolation, despair, sometimes even terror.
The Quebec that I love, the Quebec of which we are so proud, is the Quebec that is open to others, unwavering in its desire to reinvent itself and embracing that reinvention by welcoming new faces and new ideas. That is the Quebec that I have always carried in my heart as a sacred, irreplaceable gift, one that I will always listen to. It is with you, Quebeckers of all backgrounds, that I come to continue the dialogue for which we yearn. Because, as the poet Gilles Vigneault so beautifully sang, words matter to us, and my deepest wish is for words from the heart, words enriched by our experiences, by all our viewpoints and all the choices we have made.
Thank you for your welcome.
