Rideau Hall, Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Too often we forget that the freedom we enjoy in Canada is not shared by most people in our world. Those who came before us paid a high price for our freedom. Remembrance Day is especially for thinking about the incredible good fortune we have to live in a country where anything is possible. And it is a time to pay tribute to those from whom we have received this priceless heritage.

I would like for us to return for a moment to the story of the poppy—a story which I find profoundly moving. First, because this flower usually grows in fields that have been laid waste, where the soil is poor and infertile. Sometimes, as in Flanders, it grew in places that had seen the horror of the First World War. In those barren fields covered with the bodies of valiant fallen soldiers, this exquisite flower grew and opened its blood-red blooms.

The poppies inspired Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae to compose his deeply touching poem, which he hastily wrote down when he returned from Ypres: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / between the crosses row on row.” These verses remind me that even the worst atrocities never triumph over beauty in the world. I am thinking above all today of the women and men who sacrificed years of their youth, or their very lives, for an ideal of justice and freedom. I am thinking of you.

In large part, we owe to you and to them the democracy that is central to our institutions and our collective history. We must never forget this. My husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, was born as bombs were falling, and I too know the price of freedom. We will never forget it.

And I want my daughter and all the children of Canada to know how precious the memory of these countless heroic deeds is. This past summer, we were vividly reminded of it by the citizens of countries that had been freed by our veterans. Through their words and gestures, these women and men eloquently expressed their affection and thanks to their liberators.

In this Year of the Veteran, I call on all Canadians to let the gratitude symbolized by the poppy bloom in their hearts. Let us never allow the poppy to fade from our memories.

Thank you.