Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us tonight. …
Nitin, and everyone at Cisco, thank you so much for hosting us this evening. I want to thank the Maytree Foundation and the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance for coming together to create DiverseCity and for holding these awards for the fourth year. And thank you, Lisa, for serving as our MC. And finally I want to thank all of you for all that you do, each in your own way, to bring people together and help people connect. Your work is making Ontario stronger. You’re building on one of our greatest strengths: our diversity. And you embody our greatest aspiration: the drive to reach outside of ourselves and come together to make our communities better places to live, work and raise families. You saw a need. You saw that people who wanted to contribute to their communities were facing challenges doing so. They had the talent and they had the commitment but there were roadblocks and you helped all of us see that because of that, we were selling ourselves short. We were missing out on an opportunity to grow stronger. We were missing out culturally and we were missing out economically. So you went a step further. You challenged established organizations to do something about it. And you created DiverseCity to help all of us make that happen. Together, we’re making progress. And I’m honoured that in years past you recognized our government’s efforts to increase diversity on Ontario’s boards and agencies through the Diversity in Governance Award.
It’s right to celebrate our progress. It’s right to celebrate our champions here today, just as it is also right to recognize there’s more to do. Let’s reflect just briefly on this great adventure upon which we have embarked in Ontario and Canada and why it’s right for us to continue to pursue it. Traditionally societies have been built around the idea of sameness. The idea being that people would live together because, and on condition, that they looked the same, spoke the same language, enjoyed the same traditions and culture and shared the same faith. These societies had a profound sense of “us and them.” “Them” being people; others who were in some way different. Differences were seen as trying, challenging, divisive, a source of weakness.
Here in Canada we’ve been working hard at something different. Some call it an experiment. I prefer to think of it as an exciting adventure in which the whole world has a stake. The very basis for the foundation of our country was a belief that we are better off together, and that we not only accept, but find strength in, our differences. Ours is a place where we reject the idea of “us and them.” Here, there’s just us. This powerful ideal is informed by a profound truth spoken to by the world’s wisest people and all the great faiths. And that truth is this: What matters most when it comes to people everywhere is not the colour of our skin, it is not the language that we speak, it is not the culture that we inherit, it is not the traditions we cherish, it’s not the faith we practice, it’s not the wealth we accumulate, or the power that we wield; what matters most is what we have in common: it’s our humanity.
One of Canada’s greatest statesmen, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, simply stated, “There is no longer any family here but the human family.” Ontario is the number one destination for new Canadians. We are honoured by that and strengthened by that. Our diverse population can help us better understand, better influence and better do business with the rest of the world. But we can only leverage that potential if all Ontarians achieve their potential. If all Ontarians are represented in all sectors of our society, including positions of leadership, that’s how we build social cohesion, that’s how we build prosperity. I love the hopeful, optimistic way this is expressed on the DiverseCity website. This is what you say: “Imagine — (I love that word) — Imagine the flow of creative solutions if we could tap into the wealth of ideas and experience that our diversity offers. And what a shining future we could have if every young person had a role model to point them forward and prepare them to lead.”
Tonight, we are celebrating the success of your efforts. On behalf of the people of Ontario, I congratulate this year’s recipients of the Diversity in Governance Awards: the Peel Children’s Aid Society, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Redwood, and the TD Bank Group. Tonight we celebrate your achievement in making each of these organizations’ leadership more reflective of the communities they serve.
You make us hopeful. More than that, whenever we Ontarians, in all our diversity, are seen to be moving forward together, we make others around the world hopeful. There are some parts of the world, as you well know, that are turning against immigration. They are struggling with their diversity. It’s not an easy thing to get right. But it can be done. We are proof of that. Yes, we remain a work in progress. Yes, there is more to be done. And if the Canadian ideal alone is not enough to inspire our efforts, then let’s rededicate ourselves to our mission, because the world needs to know that what we strive for is possible. If we can do it, then so can they.
And to help us achieve even more, we are granting funding for DiverseCity for the next two years, as you heard just a moment ago from Minister Hoskins.
Let me conclude by simply saying thank you once again. Thank you for sharing of yourselves and for guiding others. You are lifting all of us up. Thank you for your leadership. When we get the best out of all our people, we get the best out of our province. You help us fulfill our destiny: to be the greatest province in the best country in the world. Thank you very much.
Profiles of winners: