Rideau Hall, Monday, May 26, 2014

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Rideau Hall for this celebration of research excellence.

The Killam Prizes are known to scholars around the world for being among Canada’s most prestigious research awards.

The calibre of work recognized by these prizes and fellowships is very high indeed.

Each of this year’s recipients is a pioneer in his or her chosen field. You work separately, but together, you are making an important contribution to the sum of our knowledge and understanding.

One of the things I find most remarkable about the Killam Prizes is the breadth of the work they recognize. Engineering, the humanities, and the social, natural and health sciences, as well as interdisciplinary studies within these fields—all are considered equally essential to our success.

The inclusive nature of these awards and fellowships points us towards a basic truth: ultimately, all knowledge is interrelated.

Our laureates understand the importance of seeing both broadly and deeply.

Certainly, we must be experts in our specific fields of study, but sometimes the deepest insights come from people who also have knowledge of other, perhaps seemingly unrelated, subjects.

A great Canadian example of such a person is Marshall McLuhan, who drew from a wide variety of sources when developing his ground-breaking theories of media.

McLuhan was an expert in Renaissance rhetoric who also closely studied newspaper comic strips. He found a key metaphor for our now-ubiquitous electronic communications environment in a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. He read the work of James Joyce and of 16th-century Reformation writers, and observed that print culture was being replaced by what he called “electronic interdependence.”

Truly remarkable, isn’t it, to consider that it was a professor of Renaissance rhetoric who coined the term “global village” and foresaw the rise of the Internet decades before it was invented? 

It seems to me that this approach—which blends a laser focus on a specific project or problem, with an open, curious and wide-ranging mind—helps us to see patterns and make new discoveries.

It is also interesting to note how technology now enables us to see both broadly and deeply. From the telescope and microscope—which allow us to see far and to see small—to the computer and the Internet, which allow us to see deep and wide, to find, gather, store, relate and experiment.

Each of our laureates understands what it takes to make discoveries and to enhance our understanding.

I am so impressed by the diversity of your efforts. You are variously working on vaccines, medical diagnostics, new technologies to address socio-economic challenges, new means of transmitting information, and new ways of improving the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples.

That is quite a range of projects!

It is vitally important that we work together to share our findings and insights. If we accept the idea that all knowledge is interrelated, it follows that we can increase the sum total of our learning by communicating and collaborating widely.

A smart and caring nation has an open and generous attitude toward learning, and encourages the sharing of knowledge across borders and disciplines.

Through your efforts, Canada is a smarter, more caring nation. 

I would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the Killam Trust for their continuing dedication to research excellence in this country.

And to our laureates and research fellows: I thank you for your exemplary commitment to learning, and for sharing your important discoveries.

Congratulations on this well-deserved honour.