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The time has finally come, on this July 3, 2008, for us to have l'âme à la tendresse-for our souls to be filled with tenderness-as Pauline Julien magnificently sang, and for our hearts to join together in celebration!
Because it is not just the 400th anniversary of the founding of the City of Québec that we are celebrating together today.
We are also celebrating four centuries of courage, stubbornness and daring that have ensured that French America existed yesterday, exists today and will exist tomorrow.
Yes, dear friends, for those who, like us, have their hearts forever in the City of Québec and in the province of Quebec; for all Francophones in the Americas and around the world; indeed, for all Canadians: this is a great day.
It is a day for us to stop and reflect on how far we have come.
It is a day for us to realize that our desire to live in French has flourished, just as the idea of a field is born in a kernel of wheat, just as each leaf whispers the promise of a tree and that tree, a forest, as Gaston Miron so beautifully expressed.
Samuel de Champlain, whose memory we are honouring today, has come to symbolize four centuries of effort and dreams, at times immeasurable, always fruitful, with that irrepressible desire to see beyond the horizon.
It should come as no surprise that intrepid explorers like Samuel de Champlain reached the shores of this boundless land, whose spirit and bounty the Aboriginal peoples, our deepest roots on this continent, shared with us.
Let us remember that our country was born of that generosity. The generosity of those peoples who saw the European settlers arrive on these shores, who welcomed them and revealed to them the very essence of this land, who shared with them their knowledge and their cultures.
But who, little by little, came to understand that nothing would ever be the same and saw their rich universe turned upside down.
I am delighted that the celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of the City of Québec have also given us the opportunity to reflect on the rich cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity of the first inhabitants of this vast land; to look back and explore our very first encounters and the mingling of cultures between the French, English, Irish and Amerindians.
Four hundred years later, Canada contains the world! And it was that period so long ago that forever forged the bonds between us.
The City of Québec, just as its lively culture and language, is beautiful, strong and more vibrant than ever!
Let the whole world know that our joy on this festive day will never be extinguished.
And may the bells and chimes of Canada's thirteen capital cities ring out as one in a sign of solidarity and harmony.
