Among the global family, Canada is still a relatively young nation. But throughout 2005, our history has been our constant companion – reminding us of our country’s accomplishments, urging us to look back and to ponder and to marvel.

July 01, 2005
Ottawa, Ontario

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Your Excellencies, honoured guests, Canadians here on Parliament Hill and across the land:

Among the global family, Canada is still a relatively young nation. But throughout 2005, our history has been our constant companion – reminding us of our country’s accomplishments, urging us to look back and to ponder and to marvel.

This is the 125th anniversary of the writing of our national anthem by Calixa Lavallée and Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. We are marking the centenaries of Saskatchewan and Alberta. We have commemorated the 60th anniversary of V-E Day and the liberation of the Netherlands by unyielding Canadian troops. We have observed the 20th anniversary of the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And we have celebrated 40 years of being united as a nation under a flag that we could truly call our own.

Beneath the fields of France, a system of tunnels from the First World War remains intact. In a storeroom deep underground, you can still see the image of a maple leaf that a young Canadian solider carved into the wall almost 90 years ago, before the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

The maple leaf is a daily and enduring presence in our lives. But it’s especially on Canada Day that we recognize how our flag has come to be so much a part of our history, our nation, and so deeply a part of us. The maple leaf is a symbol of duty and valour, pride and perseverance, ingenuity, diversity and, of course, global hockey supremacy.

More than anything else, it’s a symbol of what we as Canadians stand for. That’s why we pin it to our lapels and sew it to our backpacks. We do it so we can carry Canada and its ideals with us. Some – including one of my sons -- even tattoo it on themselves, which as prime minister I consider to be a tremendous declaration of love of country. As a father I’d prefer he’d sew it on his backpack.

Many of us remember where we were the day the red maple leaf was raised for the first time to the top of the flagpole – in school yards and city squares, outside town halls and people’s homes, and of course here on Parliament Hill. We felt a bolt of patriotism. We felt that Canada, then not even a century old, had suddenly grown up.

I come here and I work under that flag. All Parliamentarians do. And each morning, as we look skyward, we are reminded that four decades ago, we as Canadians committed ourselves boldly and irreversibly to the future, to what Canada could become, to achieving a destiny that would be unmistakably and eternally ours alone.

And take a look at us now.

Take a look at us -- a free and sovereign nation, rich and respectful, abundant in opportunity and optimism, dedicated to generosity and to sharing, in many ways a model to the world, in many ways the envy of the world.

Take a look at us – a proud and diverse people, welcoming to those who come here from around the home, caring of those with whom we share this great land.

Take a look at us. Behold the wonder of our landscapes – from the old-growth forest of Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island, dominated by trees hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of years old, to the jagged ice cliffs of Baffin Island and on to the barren majesty of Signal Hill on Newfoundland. The mountain ranges, coastal towns, the vast expanse of the prairies, the energy and dynamism of our largest cities. Our country is a marvel -- as diverse and as remarkable as the people who inhabit it.

Today, on Canada Day, we reflect on how fortunate we are as a nation and as a people. We rejoice in that which makes us Canadian. And we display our deep and tranquil pride in all that we have accomplished, in all that we stand poised to achieve together.

Today, we look back on our history, on how we got here, on those who helped to build the country we love so deeply. Tomorrow, we set about making history of our own.

This is our country. This is our day. This is our time. Happy birthday Canada.