Reception at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti

Port-au-Prince, Friday, January 16, 2009

My husband Jean-Daniel and I are delighted to be back in Haiti. The country where I was born. The country where our daughter was born. The country that Jean-Daniel fell in love with, where he found inspiration as a filmmaker.

This is my second official visit to Haiti as governor general of Canada.

In May 2006, when President Préval was sworn into office, so many of us were filled with the hope that was sweeping across our island that has known its share of hardship. 

Then, as I addressed the Haitian-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I stressed the importance of doing away with the “every man for himself and his clan” mentality once and for all, because that way of thinking has done nothing but unnecessarily perpetuate senseless and often deadly divisions.

A way of thinking that has done nothing but underscore profound inequalities that give rise to injustice and exclusion.

I still believe that this is the only way that Haiti will be able to rekindle that spark in so many vacant stares; to straighten so many bodies bent under the weight of misery; to fill so many empty bellies.

Though I have always held fast to that hope, it is with a sense of urgency that I am speaking to you today, my Haitian sisters and brothers.

Today, the world is in the midst of a serious economic crisis, one that is causing anxiety in the most advanced countries and humanitarian crises in the most fragile.

In Haiti, the economic downturn has aggravated an already disastrous food crisis, made worse by the relentless pounding of hurricanes.

The violence of the cyclonic onslaught was such that it devastated the entire country, particularly the Artibonite region—Haiti’s food basket—and destroyed any promise of better harvests.

Although this unfortunate turn of events may seem insurmountable, you must not give up, dear friends, in spite of the enormous task that lays before you, one that we will help you to overcome. 

Although the needs are great, our willingness to respond must be even greater.

I agree wholeheartedly with Haiti’s prime minister, Michèle Pierre-Louis, with whom I have spoken, that above all else, you must turn this most recent ordeal into an opportunity. 

You must seize this opportunity, though it may be painful and difficult, to take sustainable steps to ensure that Haiti will never again be this vulnerable.

The urgent need for action is indisputable.

The urgent need for action is unavoidable.

Infrastructures must be rebuilt, without which the movement of people, goods and services will grind to a standstill. 

The agriculture sector must be strengthened and farmers must be given better ways to produce their crops and feed the Haitian people.

The regions must be opened up so that networks for co-operation and mutual assistance can be created without barriers.

Civil society must to be supported so that new bridges of solidarity can be built to promote civic engagement.

In the country of Toussaint Louverture, democracy must rest on the security and respect for the most basic rights of children, women and men.

The conditions for learning must be improved so that youth, who make up such a large proportion of Haitians, do not succumb to defeatism, or even worse to crime.

Initiatives focussed on the quality and viability of healthcare must be adopted right across this country. 

The circle of hemispheric and international solidarity must be expanded with the Haitian people. 

We must work with the people so that Haiti can at long last break free from the devastating cycle of dependency and regain its pride. 

But more than anything, Haiti needs an overarching plan so that it is no longer at the mercy of the weather and is able to address, at all times and under any circumstance, the most pressing needs of its children.

In the words of my uncle, the poet René Depestre, “[translation] when the dust has settled on our lives again, where the spirit is wounded most deeply, only then can the scar begin its healing work.”

President Préval, Prime Minister, dear friends, let me assure you that Canada fully intends to walk beside Haiti on this path to reconstruction and accountability.

That is the message that I came to share with you.

But first, the most urgent needs had to be met.

And it is in that spirit that Canada sent nearly six million dollars in additional humanitarian aid to Haiti, which has been devastated by tropical storms, and on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Haiti, sent the HMCS St. John’s to the southern region, which had been cut off from urgent care and basic supplies.   

We pooled our efforts with your own and together have shown the world how two countries can work together toward a single, common goal: to bring relief and assistance to a population in distress.

During my stay, I wanted to be sure that my travels would take me to the north and south of Haiti to see for myself the many projects that have been initiated through the productive partnerships that we have established and thanks to the daring of the women and men who are doing all they can to ensure that they are successful. 

Be it an emergency operations centre, a rice-growing project, or a project to restore police stations in Les Cayes; a water catchment project or an orphanage in Port-au-Prince; or even discussions with farmers or the condition of infrastructures in Ennery, governments, civil societies and missionaries from both of our countries are working hand in hand to rekindle hope in these difficult times.

Please allow me, someone whose Haitian blood still flows in my veins, to share one last dream with you right now.

That dream is for Haiti to rediscover the strength, determination and pride of its ancestors, who were freed from oppression and servitude. 

For Haiti to show the world and itself all that it is capable of.

I believe with all of my heart that that moment is near at hand.