Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson
Speech on the Occasion of a Citizenship Ceremony
Ottawa, Friday, July 1st, 2005
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I'm so happy to welcome you to the Parliament of Canada. This is the first time we have sworn in new citizens in this Senate Chamber. Such a ceremony is among the most important in our society, and to host it here, in this Chamber of sober reflection on our laws, makes for a beautiful match.
And in terms of your timing, you've really won the citizenship lottery! It's Canada Day, we're here in the centre of Canadian democracy, and the country is throwing a huge party for you for the rest of the day! Celebrating Canada Day on Parliament Hill is one of those things that everyone should do at least once. After today, you can check that off your personal life list as well.
New citizens, your choice to become Canadians reminds us all of our great luck to be in and of this country. Canada Day reminds us that whether our families have been here for five years or five generations or forever, we are all Canadians. There are no grades of citizenship; there is no such thing as a second-class Canadian.
It's wonderful to read the list of countries that you come from. It changes with each new ceremony that I witness. But one thing is constant: Canadians come from everywhere. You are from China, Columbia, England, France, Germany, India, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia. All these countries have at least one thing in common: they produce splendid Canadian citizens.
Just because you're here, our country is going to be more interesting and more capable and more diverse. It already is, for you have already begun to contribute in the workplace, through your family lives and, quite likely, as community volunteers. You haven't just been waiting around until you became a Canadian citizen! As of today, though, you're going to be able to do even more. Now you can more fully offer to Canada your energy, your traditions and your talents, just as Canada extends to you its generosity, its opportunity and its fundamental decency.
It is crucial for all of us to realize that everything about our history belongs to all of us. Just because you are new to Canada does not mean that history begins with you. You have come to this country and embraced it because of its democratic way of life, its prosperous and peaceful history. But it has its dark corners as well – the internship of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War, an unwillingness to take in Jewish refugees in the same period, and the longstanding exclusion of the Chinese from citizenship. Now that you are joining our family, you have to accept our family history as part of your own. Canada represents a fixed menu – you can't select your preferred bits of past on an à la carte basis. You give yourself over to this nation and its history when you choose Canada and take that oath of citizenship.
I hope you will also give yourselves over to all the wonderful things about Canada, especially here in the capital. I have more items for your "to-do" list. Have you skated on the Rideau Canal yet? Have you been to the new Canadian War Museum, or the Museum of Civilization? Do you know where to find the best hamburger, the best shawarma, and the best dim sum in town? And can you follow the puck when you watch hockey? Do you know who Rocket Richard was? Can you make sense of Canadian football? Have you been to Niagara Falls? Do you know the words to 'O Canada' in English and in French? Or maybe a combination of the two!
We've always been a country of immigrants. In 1840, Louis LaFontaine, who helped to bring responsible government to the budding Canada with Robert Baldwin, said this in a speech to his electors:
"Canada is the land of our ancestors; it is our country, as it must be the adopted country of the various populations which come from diverse portions of the globe to make their way into its vast forests as the future resting place of their families and their hopes. Like us, their paramount desire must be the happiness and prosperity of Canada, as the heritage which they should endeavour to transmit to their descendants in this young and hospitable country. Above all their children must be like ourselves, CANADIANS."
Our country has, within the last four decades, really practised the ideals expressed by LaFontaine. Our welcome is warm and wide, and we have a diversity that astonishes the world. We are a nation that is not only deeply conscious of the oneness of humanity, but one that is demonstrating how to achieve it. We are showing this here at home, in the richness of the communities that we are building, and across the world in our global work for peace, development and understanding.
One hundred years ago, the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta came into Confederation. In welcoming them and their citizens, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of the time, made particular mention of recent immigrants. He said:
"Canada is in one respect like the kingdom of Heaven: those who come at the eleventh hour will receive the same treatment as those who have been in the field for a long time.
"We want to share with them our lands, our laws, our civilization ... Let them take their share in the life of this country ... Let them be electors as well as citizens. We do not want or wish that any individual should forget the land of his origin. Let them look to the past but let them still more look to the future. Let them look to the land of their ancestors, but let them look also to the land of their children. Let them become Canadians and give their heart, their soul, their energy, and all their power to Canada [and] to its institutions."
There's no need to wait until you are more ready, more Canadian. As of today, Canadian is what you are. You've been studying and preparing. In many areas, you probably know more about Canada than long-time citizens do. I encourage you to learn more and more about this wonderful country: its geography, its institutions, its struggles and its triumphs. Dive right in to the main current of Canadian life and bring your children with you. You may find that it's your children who dive first and tow you along with them, and that's fine, too.
I know you have accepted the duties and embraced the rich possibilities of Canadian citizenship. I believe you are going to contribute to the public good with skill, conviction and enthusiasm, because that is what Canadians do. That's what citizenship means in this country: that you care, that you're cared for, that nobody is excluded, that citizens may become what they were truly meant to be and help others to do the same.
Happy Canada Day to all of us, and for our new citizens today, welcome to the family!
