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Ottawa, Saturday, July 2, 2011
Thank you so much for welcoming me today, and for the wonderful musical performance.
It is a pleasure to join you today for this presentation of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Awards in our nation’s capital.
Our timing could not be better, given the recent arrival of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Canada. We are blessed to be linked to such a wonderful couple, and the enthusiasm felt by Canadians for Their Royal Highnesses is heartfelt and forthright, not least because they represent an important part of our future—that of the Crown in Canada.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to recognize your achievements in the midst of the Royal Tour, because each of you similarly inspires us with hope and optimism for the future. And in fact, you are already making a positive impact on our country. That is why you are here today.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award is a wonderful tribute to the dreams and achievements of youth. And, by encouraging excellence, these awards also make a vital contribution to our future well-being.
As you know, we live in a rapidly evolving world, marked by globalization, shifting demographics and unprecedented rates of change. In this new era, we must aspire to excellence, because in a globalized world, the strength of our ideas and the pace of our innovation will determine our quality of life.
As governor general, I have been inviting Canadians to imagine our country in 2017, when we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation. I want to encourage you to think of ways to build a smarter, more caring nation as we approach this wonderful milestone.
Some two decades ago, Mother Teresa came to Montréal. One of our neighbours, moved by her work with the poor in Calcutta, asked Mother Teresa how she could help. She replied: “Just look around you. In your own neighbourhood there is a family who needs your care and love.”
Shortly afterward, I read a criticism of Mother Teresa’s work. Her shelter in Calcutta gave succour to perhaps 200 people in a city where millions lived in abject poverty. Her work was described as one small drop in an ocean.
A few weeks later, I realized the shortcomings of this criticism. It was looking at her work from the point of view of physics, rather than chemistry.
My children, aged 2 to 9 at the time, would criticize the entertainment I was providing at their birthday parties. They would ask me, “Why can’t you do a magic show like Dean MacFarlane instead of telling us ghost stories that no one believes?”
At that time, Andy MacFarlane was the Dean of Journalism at the University of Western Ontario, where I was the Dean of Law. Being quite competitive, I attended the next birthday party at the MacFarlane home, where Andy was dressed as a magician, with a long cape and flowing sleeves. He was performing a magic trick, turning water into wine. He took a glass of clear water, raised it in the air, and uttered that magic phrase, “Abracadabra!” He then swept the glass into his sleeves while whirling 360 degrees, surreptitiously adding a few drops of red vegetable dye into the glass, and emerged with a glass of a lovely rose-hued liquid.
At that moment, I realized that Mother Teresa was changing the culture of Calcutta, and indeed that of the world. It was the transformation of the water—not the addition to it—that was improving the lives of so many families.
Congratulations to you all on this marvelous achievement, and thank you for your hard work. Your contributions are essential to the nation to which we aspire.
In the words of George Bernard Shaw, a famous British author: “Some people see things as they are and wonder why. We dream of things that ought to be and ask why not?"