Rideau Hall, Friday, December 12, 2008
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We have come here this morning to honour women and men who have left their mark on this country.
Those of you receiving our country's highest honour today have always endeavoured to improve yourselves, to reinvent yourselves, to push back the boundaries of knowledge and imagination, to improve the lives of those around you. Not just for show, but from a genuine desire to find inner fulfillment.
You are driven by a passion, by a thirst for the absolute. By a keen awareness of your responsibility toward the common good and by a deep sense of humanity. By an insatiable curiosity that compels you always to broaden your professional field.
You represent a wide array of disciplines: justice, the arts, philanthropy, business, community work, health, engineering, science, politics and finance.
But what you share, despite the range of your fields of endeavour, is that you have all made and continue to make a difference in our lives.
Look at this monumental work, born of the generosity and talent of one of our greatest artists, Norval Morrisseau. At once an artist and a shaman, Morrisseau restored the memory, traditions and legends of the First peoples, to enrich our present.
Morrisseau, who said that the wounds of history and life could be healed with colour, was invested into the Order of Canada as a member in 1979. His impact on the world has been profound and has touched each and every one of us in some way.
Just as your projects, ideas, research, actions and works improve and illuminate our life and that of future generations.
Wherever I go, in Canada and abroad, I encounter women and men who are anything but indifferent, defeatist and apathetic.
My husband Jean-Daniel Lafond and I, accompanied by a delegation, just recently returned from a State visit to three European countries: Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
In the course of the visit, we created greater opportunities for exchange with exceptional people who are helping to build their societies, which in turn are working to become increasingly open to the world.
Like you, these remarkable people are building the future; they are paving the way. They are community leaders, women, youth, artists, thinkers, decision makers who refuse to be discouraged by the enormity of the challenges they are facing and are looking squarely ahead, making every effort to strengthen social ties and build bridges between us.
Here in Canada as around the world, the true strength of a society resides in the willingness of its citizens to change things for the better and to kindle a spark of hope.
I am thinking of the women and men who dare to push themselves to the limit, to take their ideas, aspirations and convictions as far as they will go.
I am thinking of the women and men who remind us that it is within our power to reach the loftiest goals.
And I am thinking of those youth who have repeatedly told me that solidarity is a civic responsibility.
To you, the new members, officers and companions of the Order of Canada, I offer my gratitude and admiration, on behalf of all Canadians.
May you inspire others to action and encourage us to pursue our own dreams.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
