On Monday, October 16, 2017, Her Honour The Honourable Janice Filmon, C.M., O.M., Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, welcomed attendees at the Vanier Institute’s annual Community Reception at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
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Partners, supporters, leaders and friends of the Vanier Institute of the Family, members of the great extended family of Canadians, it is a pleasure to welcome you to Manitoba and to this very fitting venue for your annual Community Reception.
We are gathered here on Treaty One territory, on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and the homeland of the Métis people.
We are meeting near the birthplace of Western Canada, on land where families and communities have gathered for millennia to meet, trade and share stories.
And tonight we are meeting in a museum dedicated to preserving lessons from the past and acting as a beacon for the future.
As we seek to build a better world, there are no more important foundation stones than knowledge and family.
Family is the first institution of health, safety and learning in most of our lives, and it’s one that can provide hope, support and understanding in every stage of life.
But supporting and encouraging families to serve all their members requires understanding of the ever-changing state of the family.
The Vanier Institute of the Family has been bringing together researchers, educators, policy makers, service providers and Canadian families throughout more than 50 years of rapid social, economic and technological change.
Thanks to the research and education efforts of the Vanier Institute, we now know that a family does not have to be composed, as the poet Ogden Nash put it, of children, women, men, an occasional animal and the common cold.
Your success as an institution has been made possible by the commitment and dedication of generations of leaders who have offered their guidance and vision. I’m delighted to be able to join you tonight in honouring the contributions of one such community leader – Manitoba’s own David Northcott, who has completed his second term on your board.
All across Canada, volunteers like David Northcott help our nation to reach its potential. To all of you who donate your time and expertise to improve life for Canadian families, I offer the thanks of a grateful nation.
And to all of those who work for or in partnership with the Vanier Institute of the Family, I wish another successful and productive year.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich.
Published on October 20, 2017
