Awards ceremony 29 10 2007

Remarks by Thomas S. Saras

Your Honour, Your Worship Mayor David Miller,  Hon. Members of the Diplomatic Corps, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentleman, Brothers and Sisters in the Ethnic Media.

It is an honour and a distinct privilege for me and my colleagues to welcome you today to this function.

It is also a great honour to be one of the very first voices to express our congratulations, your honour, on the occasion of your appointment to the august office of the Lieutenant Governor of the leading and great province of Ontario. I must say that this appointment makes every member of our society, and especially from our profession of journalism, proud. Kindly permit me, Your Honour, to take this opportunity to express our best wishes for a very successful and creative public service equaling, and rather excelling, the distinction that you achieved previously, as a member of the media, as you served our fellow Canadians, something that was a bench mark for us to follow, and we are sure you shall set such standards of excellence again.

You Honour,  we are most grateful to you,  for by honoring the tradition of your predecessor, the Hon. James K. Bartleman, for hosting this event on behalf of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, which represents 463 Canadian publications from all over Canada in more than ninety languages, other than English or French, out of a total of 536. By doing so, you have not only honoured our organization but also the entire ethnic community of Canada. For this gesture, we are most grateful to you, Your Honour, and we are also grateful to you staff, this wonderful and dynamic group of men and women, for their help and enthusiasm, which exists far beyond the sense of their duty.

Your presence here today, also signifies your concerns, care and recognition of the realities and the importance of the ethnic communities in the Canadian multicultural mosaic.

Our thanks also go to Premier Dalton McGuinty and our political leadership from the Legislative Assembly for their recognition, support and help to our organization.

Three millenniums ago, it was Aristotle who declared that “all men are equal”. Although this principle is the lynch pin of our modern democratic societies, Yet three thousand years later, we still battle inequality in most areas of our society. Further more we as a country are upholders of the ideal of democracy in our government. As a nation we seek spiritual union with those who love freedom. Although of many bloods and of diverse national origins we stand before the world as one people united in a common determination.

Our determination is to uphold the ideal of human society, which would substitute freedom against despotism in the governments of the world.

 Our government is based on the belief that people from different cultures and traditions can live together and also can be strong and free. Our nation exemplifies that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom.

This vision of democracy is grounded in the principle that we should train our citizens to live their life being always aware that his or her civic role is its most abiding, and that only when a culture embraces its diversity, and people strive to do no harm to one another, can it be considered truly civilized.

Freedom of expression and freedom of information are important pillars of a successful democracy and those are principals that are of the outmost importance to the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada.

We are leaving in a democratic society. Our instrument is honor and friendship. Our method in this organization is to ensure increase of understanding of each other. Our basis is confidence to each other. These are the basic elements we are using to safeguard our rights and our liberties, as we are building our common civilization.

In the pursuit of these principles, our editors, writers and publishers are working very hard to spread knowledge of the world’s events, in their neighborhood and every corner of the planet, to citizens of Canada and the world.

It is also important to point out that our organization does not represent press alone. It encompasses all aspect of newspapers production as well as every form of electronic media our generation has been blessed to enjoy.

I shall like to point out that no corporate house funds them. They run by professionals who have to work hard in order to serve their ethnic community. To most of us, producing the paper is a daily struggle. Yet some of us have been successful enough to be around for forty or fifty years.

Your Honour, it is this spirit of courage and commitment that we are recognizing here today.

Today we are recognizing, also, members of different ethnic communities for their success and their efforts to make a difference in the lives of all Canadians.

They came to this great country of ours seeking positive contributions to our society. This is something that they achieved.

Thus by recognizing this evening’s recipients we acknowledge our appreciation for what they have done so far for the community and at the same time we wish them luck and encourage them to continue these wonderful efforts in the future.

Thank you again for being here and allow me to extend our Congratulations to all the recipients.