Montréal, Friday, February 10, 2006

I would first like to say how moved I am to be here with you in the Saint‑Michel district, where I lived as a teenager. Not for very long, it’s true, but long enough that its memories and impressions have stayed with me. I often joke that I could easily be a taxi driver in Montreal, not because I am Haitian but because I had a mother whose favourite sport was moving house. Uprooted from the land of her birth, with two children whom she had to raise on her own, my mother found it hard to put down new roots and was always in search of a better place for her daughters. So from one neighbourhood to another—from our first basement apartment with one and a half rooms and a view of the sidewalk, to the first house that she proudly bought by putting together her savings from odd jobs—thanks to my mother, we made the grand tour of Montreal. I know the city by heart and, I would have no hesitation to add, with all of my heart. Is that not the same story of so many immigrants, who make up the majority of residents of this district?

Saint-Michel is one of Montreal’s most multi-ethnic and most heavily populated districts. And it must be acknowledged that Saint-Michel is also one of the most disadvantaged areas both economically and socially. That speaks to how difficult are the obstacles that immigrants must overcome. The same obstacles still confront their children, who are born here and who we would hope to see fully integrated into society. Far too often, the lack of understanding on the part of some leads to the exclusion of others. Xenophobia even creeps in, poisoning our relations. Look at today’s cityscape and see all of these excluded and ignored people wandering through it. Among them, sadly, are too many young people who are adrift or sinking. Youth for whom the future seems almost closed off and the opportunities seem so limited that delinquency is quick to entangle them in its nets. These are all situations that must not leave us indifferent, and that can lead to uncontrollable outbursts of violent emotions and echoes of barbarism.

Must the frustrations and anger find their outlet solely in the fog of drugs and the fire of weapons? Before we get to that point, we should remain attentive to the distress signals sent to us by young people, spelled out in the graffiti that score the walls of the city. We must hear the cries for help that are expressed in somewhat crude words spat out to the beat of harsh rhythms and songs “rapping” about realities of which we are unaware. And what is there to say about these girls scarcely beyond their childhood who carry their babies clutched in their arms? How can we turn our backs on the children torn between the weight of traditions to which their parents cling and the unbridled search for new identities, fuelled by the fascination of images?

Exclusion, for me, is deeply disturbing. It wears a thousand faces and knows no one age. It is the Black person you are wary of in the street, the White who is homeless or speaks a foreign language, the Asian in the corner convenience store, and the Aboriginal person who has left the reserve, moving beyond our hearing. Exclusion is rampant in our cities and beyond. Exclusion puts a stigma on entire sections of the population that are already very vulnerable. Exclusion is the child of injustice. I know how great the effort not to give way to despair.

Fortunately, there are women and men charting a different course for us by working tirelessly to loosen the grip of prejudice. So many of you have been working toward this ideal tirelessly, selflessly, for so long. From your openness to others and determination to combat exclusion flow new ideas, sometimes even new forms of expression required to redefine the way we live together.

I also see as proof this very place in which we have assembled this evening. This place created by individuals who not so long ago were considered at worst to be clowns or vagabonds, at best buskers or mere tumblers. Some might have treated them as penniless good-for-nothings. Those who did so were undervaluing the power of their imagination and the drive to realize the dream that inspired them. Who would have thought that a fire-eater, accordion player and stilt walker such as Guy Laliberté would succeed in conquering the world? And the dream doesn’t stop there. At the heart of the gigantic and fabulous adventure of Cirque du Soleil lies the desire to do the impossible by all sorts of acrobatic feats. One of which is that of building on the site of an old garbage dump, in a district said by many to be disreputable, this place of hope which is TOHU. Enjoying an international reputation, with a mission of revitalizing circus arts, TOHU also gives expression to an ideal of social development. In Saint-Michel, it serves as a gathering place for young people from the district and for some, it is a safety net that stops their descent into the depths. It is a place where they can speak out, share, learn and explore their full potential. What these young people get from the creators of TOHU and the partners who support their activities is the very opposite of exclusion. It is all of the richness of inclusion, which lights a beacon of happiness at the end of the tunnel.

To the many young people here this evening, I want to pay sincere tribute. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of you, particularly the Comité des jeunes de Saint‑Michel. Your commitment to revitalizing your district shows that those who claim that Saint‑Michel youth have no future are wrong. Let me repeat: they are wrong. Despite barriers and prejudice, which you encounter day by day, you have been determined to carve out a place for yourselves in society. I call on all of the young people here to do the same, for yourselves and your communities. This is the way not just to develop self‑esteem but to build our future together. As for us, who bear witness to the efforts of these young people, we have the responsibility of hearing them and ensuring that they assume their rightful place in our society.

This is what I myself aspire to as governor general, what I wanted to sum up in my coat of arms: breaking down solitudes. I firmly intend to roll up my sleeves and work so that those who have had no voice may be heard. I want to meet head‑on the concerns of young people, troubling though they may be. I am convinced that distress and violence, always unjustified, are the result of dialogues that never took place and never‑launched debates about ideas. The time has come to lay aside our self‑absorption and to emerge once and for all from the excessive individualism of recent decades.

We see it daily: indifference to others and the attitude of “every man for himself” lead to a dead end. In our modern societies that day by day are becoming more diverse, there is an urgent need to return to community values, to more civic values. Would it not be better to draw up a list of what we have in common beyond our differences, and to reinvent the ties that bring us together at the start of the third millennium? I simply raise the question. The answer is worth hearing. Because what is at stake here is our capacity to build together a new world in which we could live better, a world in which we would give ourselves the tools to make more room for dialogue between cultures and generations. A world in which attitudes would not be stones thrown from either side of invisible barriers, but stones to be rubbed against each other to create sparks and thus relight the flame of hope.

Let me share with you my most cherished dream. It grows out of my certainty that nothing is ever over for us, for our children, in Saint-Michel or anywhere else. Each word counts, each action matters. Each individual adventure adds to our united strength. From the mingling of our ideas and the encounter of our desires and our actions will come hope for the future for all of us and for humanity. I dream of the day when the sum of our actions will create new opportunities and make a real difference instead of building walls and locking us into what separates us. Some may see me as naive, others as idealistic. Personally, I think that you have to dream big dreams in order to make enough of them come true, especially when what is involved is the good of all.

Thank you for welcoming me here, in a district that has already been my home. Thank you for dreaming with me of a better world. Thank you to TOHU for lending an ear to young people who ask simply to be heard.