Rideau Hall, Friday, April 27, 2007

Thank you for accepting this invitation. It gives Jean-Daniel and me great pleasure to welcome you to Rideau Hall.

As you know, one of the purposes of this institution is to recognize and highlight the excellence, talent, creativity, commitment, bravery, virtue and merit of Canadian women and men.

I would like to emphasize that each of the people here tonight is a part of the very best Canada has to offer in terms of ideas, creativity and accomplishments: you demonstrate that in a thousand and one ways.

The National Arts Centre is currently celebrating the vitality and brilliance of Quebecois artists, and as such, we are especially thrilled today to honour Luc Plamondon, one of our most important ambassadors within La Francophonie and all over the world.

In June 2002, the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada appointed Luc Plamondon an Officer within the Order. But he did not have time to receive this honour in person until now. It gave me great pleasure to award it to him earlier today.

It was a real honour for me, dearest Luc, because your songs have been my constant companions at very specific times in my life and again just recently.

On September 27, 2005, at the ceremony marking my official installation as Governor General of Canada—which was broadcast live across the country—I invited Lynda Thalie and Julie Massicote to join voices and sing Ne tuons pas la beauté du monde (We must not destroy the beauty of the world) in both French and Arabic. I am very fond of that song: for me, it has always been one of the most beautiful odes to life I know.

During my heart-moving State visits to five African countries last year, Lynda Thalie accompanied me to her native Algeria where, again, she sang that song for me in Arabic.

Algeria is struggling to recover from a horrible decade of violence that saw over one hundred thousand people die; imagine the impact of those words on the hearts and spirits of the people of Algeria: Ne tuons pas la beauté du monde.

And that is the power of art: it transcends borders and reconciles supposed differences; art allows the imagination to become a space where people meet, understand one another, start a dialogue, and form a kind of kinship.

And on my official visit to Haiti, on the occasion of the swearing-in of President Préval, at a State dinner, I was surprised when young Haitian artists performed excerpts from Starmania, which they sang with such conviction, with Black and coloured rhythms, in Creole… It made me cry.

Lynda Thalie, Julie Massicote, and the marvellous and unique Renée Claude, who was the first person to sing Ne tuons pas la beauté du monde, are all here to honour you, Luc Plamondon, as are other singers, friends, admirers, organizers for Québec Scene.

Tomorrow night, in the NAC’s Southam Hall, the most beautiful arias from Starmania—and the talented stars singing them—will stir every soul in the room.

I am not alone: you, your music and your songs play a vital role in the lives of so many people, including those here tonight.

Thank you for all the joy you bring us. And thank you for letting us turn tonight’s tribute into an ode to friendship.