It gives me great pleasure to welcome you today to Rideau Hall. It is wonderful that I have the opportunity, so soon after taking office, to participate in the launch of such a generous, hopeful project as the one undertaken by the F d ration des communaut s francophones et acadiennes du Canada.
Dialogue is a word denoting a very Canadian concept, an open, frank channel of communication.
But it's not just a word, it's also a window on the society in which we will live, a window through which we can observe and better understand Canada's existing diversity and bring our collective energies to bear in order to move forward. As a little girl growing up in Ottawa, just a few hundred metres from here in a largely French-speaking district, I wanted to learn French. I thought it was only natural, and my parents also, to learn a language and want to share it. But back then, language and religion were very closely related. Not being Catholic, I had to make do with just English.