Graduation Address

"Graduation Address." (23 May 1991). (UA Case 67, Box 2)

Madame Chancellor, Mr. President, fellow graduands, friends and members of the family of the University of New Brunswick — Let me first of all thank you for the very warm welcome, the flowers and the hospitality which have been extended to me since my arrival yesterday — they have been much appreciated. I have been particularly impressed with the arrangements which you have made for good weather — amazing.

These are tough times for institutions of learning. Financial realities are forcing many universities to question their role and place in society, to examine whether they should concentrate and focus their limited resources on the pursuit of that which is regarded as "pure academics," to withdraw if you will into the proverbial ivory tower or whether they should remain involved in the changes and challenges facing their communities.

I know that I express the sentiments of my fellow graduands when I thank you for resisting any such temptations. More specifically, I thank you for responding to the massacre of fourteen young women at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6th two years ago by accepting the offer issued by the engineering associations of this country and establishing a chair to encourage more women to enter this honourable profession. I thank you also, for your commitment to the Regional Centre for the Study of Family Violence and for your co-operation with the Muriel Fergusson McQueen Foundation in its efforts to raise financing for this endeavour. I thank you for your strong Women Studies Program and for your excellent Native education initiative. In these and other ways The University of New Brunswick has gone beyond the traditional definition of a university as a meeting place of scholars, and a forum for the exchange of ideas; and it has defined itself as an important social institution which responds to the needs of the community in which it is located. Your role has not been a merely reactive one, you have pioneered, you have taken risks, you have led. For these reasons I consider it an honour to be associated with this university. My fellow graduands and I thank you for your recognition and commendation, and I pledge my ongoing support for your outstanding endeavours.

To today's graduates, I offer congratulations and, echo the observation that you are graduating "IN INTERESTING TIMES". Or as Francis Bacon would have described it into a world "Rampant with effervescent Life"

Around the world nations are shifting their boundaries and changing their ideologies, and everywhere groups of people are challenging customs and traditions which oppress and exploit them.

Here at home, the struggle to re-define ourselves as a nation is approaching an urgent and more critical stage as we wrestle with our history, seeking to understand who we were; as we explore our present, seeking to accept who we are; and as we examine our aspirations, trying to shape our future into who we would like to become.

We are learning the hard way that as a people we have to think more clearly, and tread more carefully than we have had to in the recent past. And we are afraid for our nation.

Challenges confront us from every direction. From the Native Peoples who were here in 1492 when this country was discovered, and who tell us that this country was never lost and never unowned; From the people of French descent who tell us that equal partnership means having equal rights as well as equal responsibilities; and from the immigrants from many lands who over the years have quietly changed this country's colour and its culture, and who now say, that they too, must be part of the equation since their contributions have helped to develop the essence of who we are as a people.

It would be a mistake for us as a nation to ignore or try to exclude any group from the dialogue, which is now taking place concerning our future. The lessons of history have taught, that in the process of our evolution it would also be a mistake for us to accord any one of those groups more importance than any other. Since the mosaic needs all of its shifting pieces to make the pattern whole.

Bill Wilson, the outspoken Native leader and activist from British Columbia, speaking as a panelist on Native issues at Carleton University recently, used the analogy of the couple who living in a house which was too large for them extended their hospitality to some homeless strangers by offering them the spare back bedroom in their home. As the stranger's family grew they occupied more and more of the house until they lived in most of the rooms and the couple were relegated to the back bedroom. Bill Wilson pointed out that even though the strangers now occupy most of the house, even though they may have repaired the roof, painted the house and planted the garden, the house is still the possession of the original owners despite the fact that their space in it is so diminished.

You may not agree with the analogy, but we the tenants of Canada, we who have tended and cared for this land down through the years, now know that whatever differences we might have with each other, we, all of us in the end are going to have to sit down and talk with that couple in the back room about an equitable and just sharing of this place.

This country has always held out the promise of fairness and justice to all its people. That promise is now being taken seriously by the Native community, by the people of Quebec, and yes by women, by poor Canadians and by the members of the myriad ethnic and racial groups which now call this place home.

Although in the past, those promises may not always have been delivered on, we now understand clearly that the future of all of us is tied to the way in which you, as a nation we believe in, honour those promises. We also know that everyone has a responsibility to participate in the examination and probing of this country which is now taking place. Because it is an operation which is too critical to our destiny to be left to the politicians, the pundits, the experts or the "others" whoever they may be.

We are in this together. And together I know that we will learn and come to understand that the ingredient which we seek, the glue if you will, which we need to hold us together, is not love or even like for each other, BUT MUTUAL RESPECT. Our hope lies not in ultimatums, not in armed standoffs, not in bloodshed, but in respecting each other regardless of Language, of Race, Creed, Sex or place of origin. For no matter how different we may appear to be, the one thing that we all share in common, is a love for this country and a desire for its survival We have great expectations.... Expectations that as in past turmoils Canada will survive this crisis. Expectations that you will play a major part in this struggle. That together we will be able to correct the errors of the past, while holding on to the benefits, and that together we will be able to chart a future course which will support and build on the special position which this country enjoys in the international community, as well as support the unique interlinking of languages and cultures which has developed between us as Canadians over the years.

Bell Hooks and Paolo Friere speak of "education as the practice of freedom, the practice by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of the world." Our world, your world is being transformed and we hope that you take away from this university and the years you spent here, the understanding, that what we have as a nation is precious beyond computing, that you also understand that its loss is probable, nay even probable, unless we act to prevent it.