Luncheon Hosted by the President of the Senate of the Parliament

Prague, Monday, December 1^st, 2008

I would like to thank you, President Sobotka, for this warm welcome. My husband and I are delighted to find ourselves once again in a country that we discovered just over a year ago, when we came to Prague to attend the annual Forum 2000 conference.

There are many ties that exist between our two countries, which have ensured productive cultural, academic and economic co-operation.

We also work side by side within several multilateral organizations, notably the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to say nothing of the work we are doing to ensure the success of the security and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

Clearly, we share the same values of freedom, tolerance, respect for human rights and human dignity.

In 2009, the Czech Republic will assume the presidency of the European Union, and we hope to continue our collaboration with you at the next Canada-European Union Economic Summit.

Come to think of it, there is only one point on which we disagree, and it is a very serious matter: hockey, the 100^th anniversary of which you are celebrating this year.

The burning question is whether Canada or the Czech Republic produces the best hockey players in the world. We certainly won’t resolve this matter today, but I will admit that I am a fan of both Jaromir Jagr and Dominique Hasek.

Canada was enriched by the arrival of tens of thousands of Czech refugees who fled oppression in 1948 and again in 1968.

Our visit to the Czech Republic has given us the opportunity to see just how far you have come since then and to appreciate the courage and determination of a people who have freed themselves from despotism and who chose to prosper in complete freedom.

And so, in the name of that freedom that we cherish so dearly, President Sobotka, ladies and gentlemen, I raise my glass to the friendship between Canada and the Czech Republic.