Speaking Notes for The Hon. Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism at the launch of the new Citizenship Study Guide, Discover Canada

Ottawa, Ontario
November 12, 2009

As delivered

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Thank you very much, Marc and Judge Ngo. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to be here with you at the Terry Fox Centre.

I remember as I was looking around this room, I recalled I was here in 1986 when I was in Grade 11. I attended a Terry Fox Centre program and I remember learning a whole lot about Canada, about our parliamentary democracy, about our way of life, and being inspired to contribute to our country. And it was, in part, my experience here through Encounters with Canada that I was inspired to enter public life. So I hope that you’re all finding this an enriching program.

I hope that you all had the chance to have a memorable recollection of Remembrance Day yesterday and you’re here during a very special week in our nation’s capital. So congratulations to each of you and to everyone involved in the Terry Fox Youth Centre, and particularly Encounters with Canada. I just had a chance to meet the staff who do remarkable work to bring together young Canadians from every corner of our country, representing the diversity and the future of Canada. And value their tremendous work to give you all an opportunity to become future leaders of our country.

I’m also proud to be here today to launch a new Citizenship Study Guide at Encounters, in a building named after the late Terry Fox, one of our country’s most beloved citizens. He was a young man who defied what, in the end, proved to be a deadly struggle with cancer. Terry Fox is one of many Canadian heroes. And we Canadians are pretty modest people.

I believe that all Canadians, including new Canadians who become citizens, should become acquainted with some of those heroes, with some of those great Canadians who have gone before us and paved the way and helped to build this magnificent country. And that’s one of the reasons I chose to come here today to launch the new Citizenship Study Guide. It will help hundreds of thousands of new Canadians better understand the values, symbols, institutions and history of Canada that, in part, attracted them to come to this country and build their future.

The new guide, Discover Canada: Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, is a major milestone in the history of Canadian citizenship.

According to Canada’s citizenship law, citizenship applicants between the ages of 18 and 54 must demonstrate an adequate knowledge of Canada, its history, the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, as well as adequate knowledge of one of our two official languages. Discover Canada is the first citizenship guide to be published that gives a real overview of Canada’s history, of our traditions and of our values. It’s also richly illustrated because we think Canada deserves to be depicted in vibrant colours.

As a civics publication, I believe that it will be the gold standard for years to come.  It will form the centrepiece of a new series of citizenship education and language training products and support programs currently in preparation. So, effective today, anyone who submits an application for citizenship, between the ages of 18 and 54, will need to study from the new guide to prepare for a new citizenship test.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada will provide further details for individuals who have already submitted an application. It is not just for newcomers, though. Discover Canada will also help young Canadians like you to better understand your rights and responsibilities. It will help you learn more about our history, traditions and institutions.

You just took a reaffirmation of Canadian citizenship, which may be your first affirmation of Canadian citizenship. And perhaps some of you actually aren’t yet Canadian citizens, in which case, we look forward to the day when you will take that oath and become full Canadian citizens. The reason why we have that reaffirmation is to remind ourselves of the mutual rights and obligations that we have to one another. Obligations that stretch back in time, obligations to those who have gone before us, obligations best defined by our veterans, whose example we celebrate and commemorate this week.

I often tell new citizens and judges, like Judge Ngo, that we administer the citizenship oath. I often tell them that, upon becoming citizens, Canadian history becomes their history. They join the Canadian story. They begin to make their contribution to our future. Ultimately, we want to create the opportunity for as many Canadians as possible to strengthen our shared identity and benefit from our common values like freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We want all citizens to have a sense of responsibility for our country, to be aware of our rights as well as our responsibilities as Canadians. Because when you become a citizen, you inherit the right to obtain a Canadian passport and certain privileges and rights that are strongly protected in our constitution and in our system of the primacy of law.

But you also inherit certain obligations and responsibilities. And one of those responsibilities is to know who we are, where we came from, what values define us, to live in accordance with those values and be inspired by the example of our predecessors. And that is what we have tried to incorporate in Discover Canada.

We designed this new comprehensive guide to help newcomers begin the process to do just that. Newcomers and Canadians should also appreciate our proud military tradition, under which more than a million Canadians served and more than 110,000 made the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of Canada over the course of the past century. This is a tradition continued to this day with great honour and dignity by our troops in Afghanistan serving in the UN mission.

As you know, yesterday was Remembrance Day. We’re honoured today to welcome Mr. Albert Reevie, a veteran of World War II, who joined the Navy right out of high school in 1943 and served until the end of the war in 1945. Mr. Reevie is here to represent the over one million Canadians who served in our country’s uniform in the past century. Please join me in thanking Mr. Reevie and all the other veterans who’ve defended our country.

I’d also like to recognize the presence of RCMP Constable Shaz Khan. Constable Khan represents thousands of Canadians who choose to serve in our country’s uniform in our national police service. And I hope he is an inspiration to you for the kind of service that you can give to Canada. So let’s salute Constable Khan and all the other members of our RCMP and police services.

I’m sure that many of you wore the poppy this past week, which grows over the graves of many of the 100,000 Canadians who lost their lives in defence of our country. The red of the poppy, like the red in our flag, reminds us of the sacrifices that have been made almost entirely by volunteers in the defence of Canada and of our democratic values. I encourage you to think about how you can give back to Canada through public service. Judge Ngo as well is an example of just that. Judge Ngo arrived in the 1970's as a refugee from communist totalitarianism in Vietnam and, like so many thousands of others from his country of origin, has become a great Canadian who has contributed to our country. Judge Ngo is the first Canadian of Vietnamese origin to serve on the Citizenship Commission as a Judge. He’s an example of how anything is possible, how people arrive in this country every day with nothing but a determination to work hard, abide by our laws and build a stronger Canada – and they succeed.

So let these people stand as an inspiration to you and other young Canadians. Canada today, as in the past, needs living witnesses to our highest values, our belief in human dignity, the basic rights of the human person and our democratic values such as freedom of conscience and religion. We need people who want to do the hard work of making a pluralistic society work and to create and maintain true unity in our country’s great diversity. That is again what this guide is about. It is to say that we, as Canadians, can all be proud of our particular backgrounds, cultures and traditions. But we must, at the same time, respect our common values and obligations to one another. To strengthen the guide and its contents, we have consulted with a panel of highly regarded Canadians, including respected authors, historians and public figures.

I’d also like to thank our public servants and the many experts, historians, academics and others who have worked hard with us in developing this new guide. In particular, there are three authors who had a significant influence on my thinking about the importance to deepen our knowledge of Canadian history, values, symbols and institutions. I can think of Professor Jack Granatstein, whose book Who Killed Canadian History? I strongly recommend. Then there is Andrew Cohen, who is the President of the new Dominion-Historica Institute, whose book The Lost Canadian  is an important call to action to recover our national memory. As well, Rudyard Griffiths, the former Executive Director of the Dominion Institute, is the author of the book Who We Are that reminds us of how important it is that we restore a sense of civic identity in Canada.

I’d also like to thank members of my own staff, particularly Dr. Chris Champion, my policy advisor, who’s put in countless hours in this project. I would also like to thank several organizations that have helped us.

The Historica-Dominion Institute, whose Executive Vice-President, Marc Chalifoux, is here today, as well as the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and Canada’s National History Society.

So on behalf of our government, on behalf of Prime Minister Harper and our new fellow citizens, I want to thank you all.

In closing, this guide is not just for new citizens, it’s for all Canadians. Whether you were born here, whether your ancestors have been here for thousands of years like our First Nations peoples, or whether your ancestors are United Empire Loyalists, this guide will deepen your understanding of our country, our history, our mutual obligations and the rights that we enjoy in this magnificent country, the greatest country on earth, Canada. Thank you very much.