Montreal Millennium Summit

Montréal, Thursday, April 16, 2009

It is a great privilege for me to be here with you today and to be a part of this edition of the Montreal Millennium Summit.

Montréal. A city that my heart has loved and my feet have walked. A city that will always remain my city.

Quebec writer Suzanne Jacob recently wrote in an insightful essay that “[translation] the history of the world is the story of the unfolding of tales that have captured our imagination.”

Allow me to begin by sharing a dream of my own with you to open the dialogue.

I like to envision each individual, each community, each nation not as isolated islands separated by the sea, but as parts of a single continent.

That continent of my dreams is not unlike Atlantis, that great island of legend described in ancient mythologies and that has inspired poetic sensibilities for millennia.

My Atlantis would not be swallowed up by the sea or lost in the folds of memory.

Each of us who believes that the ties that bind us together are stronger than the sum of our differences carries that Atlantis within us.

So what is this Atlantis of my dreams? And I hope that it inspires you to dream as well.

It is the dream of a united human race, made stronger by virtue of its humanity and by our unique contributions to a world where it is no longer a matter of “requiring” or “forbidding,” as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, here with us today, explains, but rather a world in which we celebrate our freedoms.

It is the dream of a global conscience that is stronger than the tectonic fractures that have dispersed us over the Earth’s surface and that all too often, we make out to be impassable borders, when in fact they are passageways and places where we can come together.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, the Millennium Development Goals as landmarks on a map pointing us to that humanity inherent in every woman, every man, every child that has ever lived, that is living today, and that will be alive long after we are gone.

That is what it is all about.

In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had already written in 1755 that “[w]hen it is a matter of reasoning about human nature, the true Philosopher is neither Indian, nor Tartar, nor from Geneva, nor from Paris, but he is man.”

Or woman, I would add without any hesitation. This is 2009 after all.

In fact, the true question before us in these uncertain times, when the danger posed by rising tensions looms large, is what remains of man or woman when solidarity is gone?

When I leave here in a little while, I will be meeting with the family of Trooper Karine Blais, the young soldier from the Royal 22^e Régiment of the Canadian Forces, who was killed last Monday in Afghanistan. My heart is also saddened by the murder the day before of Afghan parliamentarian Sitara Achakzai, a determined activist for women’s rights.

These two extraordinary citizens—one Canadian, one Afghan—shared a dream: to see a more just and more equitable world, to see peace reign at long last in Afghanistan. Each believed profoundly in the duty of solidarity. How can we not think of them as well?

The opportunity that we have been given today to reflect together, to broaden our individual and unique perspectives, is in itself a pacifying act of resistance.

Resistance against globalization focused solely on profitability and that does nothing but result in inequalities. 

Resistance against the pain of children crying out in hunger.

Resistance against the powerlessness of women whose bellies become battlefields.

Resistance against the suffering of bodies given over to disease.

Resistance against the collapse of spirits weakened by poverty.

Resistance against the shameless and deadly exploitation of our vital resources.

Resistance against the walls of solitude thrown up between those who are thriving and those who are fading away.

And finally, resistance against the indifference of the “everyone for themselves and their clan” mentality.

We need as many kinds of resistance as there are barriers in this third millennium on Earth.

All of humanity must now be included in our definition of community.

Deeply rooted though they may be, our individual approaches can no longer take precedence; we must learn to embrace all living things and everything that we stand for.

The time has come, dear friends, to resist every barrier, with our voices speaking as one.

And above our joined voices, I can still hear the voice of the Reverend Martin Luther King who, in 1963, urged us all—brothers and sisters of this continent, sisters and brothers of this world—to dare to dream big.

Who urged us all to dare “to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Perhaps it is more appropriate than ever for us to recall those words spoken less than 50 years ago and that have intensified to the point that they have changed the current course of history.

This call to brotherhood and sisterhood seems to me to be the most powerful solution to today’s issues.

Because, let us not pretend otherwise, we have the opportunity here and now to put our spirit of fellowship to the test and to break down the solitudes that separate us from one another.

Will we allow the financial crisis that is troubling the most affluent among us to impoverish the poorest?

Will we allow the dignity of women to be scorned by any law?

Will we thus forget the sacrifices of those who have lost their lives in the name of an ideal of justice and equality?

Do we want a world where each of us seeks to save our own skin, where we turn away from the very best within ourselves?

I ask you, dear friends, will we be able to turn the storm that we are weathering, this challenging period in our history into the ultimate opportunity to put humanity at the very heart of our concerns and the systems we are creating so that we might live together in harmony?

I hope so.

I believe so.

Because wherever the roads of this country and the world have taken me, today as governor general and commander-in-chief of Canada, I have met women, men and youth who have rekindled that hope in me.

One gesture at a time, one action at a time—with absolute daring—taking a stand against moroseness, apathy, cynicism, with a great rush of ideas and imagination.

And that hope rests on the conviction that human beings are never as strong as when they fully accept their belonging to humanity

There is the Atlantis that we thought had been lost: our humanity found!

And that, dear friends, is what I wanted to share with you.

I am grateful that life has allowed me to do so here, in Montréal, my city, the place of my earliest commitments.

Thank you.