Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in Arichat, Nova Scotia on this date in 1900 where he expressed his love for Canada in one of his most beautiful speeches. In his address, he famously compared Canada to a cathedral, a land of many races and creeds who are one in purpose. In Laurier’s speech, modern readers will find an early expression of our nation’s multicultural reality.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier: Thank Providence that we live in a country of absolute freedom and liberty. Let us always bear in mind our duties, for duty is always inherent in right. Our fathers had to labour to secure these rights. Now let us fulfil our part. Three years ago, when visiting England at the Queen's Jubilee, I had the privilege of visiting one of those marvels of Gothic architecture which the hand of genius, guided by an unerring faith, had made a harmonious whole, in which granite, marble, oak and other materials were blended.
This cathedral is the image of the nation that I hope to see Canada become. As long as I live, as long as I have the power to labour in the service of my country, I shall repel the idea of changing the nature of its different elements. I want the marble to remain the marble; I want the granite to remain the granite; I want the oak to remain the oak; I want the sturdy Scotchman to remain the Scotchman; I want the brainy Englishman to remain the Englishman; I want the warm-hearted Irishman to remain the Irishman; I want to take all these elements and build a nation that will be foremost amongst the great powers of the world.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.