The Opening of our Millennium Garden in Woodbine Park, North West Corner.
September 09, 2000
"To Those Who Built This Millennium Garden, at the corner of Coxwell and Eastern, in Toronto, please find the following, my Opening Day Musings.
Whether it is a child, perhaps five years hence, who will wander here and pause to wonder what this Monument and Garden means, or whether it's first-time visitor to Canada, who will not have lived our history, but who will, nonetheless, be drawn to this place, it is my hope that this is what it will say to them;
That we who built this Garden, with its black granite and ephemeral blooms, its flags and trees, the names of the honoured and loved, that we did so in the belief that;
Those who went before are owed a debt of gratitude worth carving in stone,
For they sponsored our freedoms.
Our greatest freedom is to dream, to contemplate, without fear, the possibilities of our future.
Whether rich man or poor, brilliant or bewildered, we may each draw upon the sacrifices of our fore bearers for that sudden bias that favours hope.
For that is the very sinew of our Democracy, that the labours and loves of past generations prepared for us a soil so rich, that our hopes and dreams might well take good root and grow to blossom.
Their legacy is the essence of our Canada, for here, like nowhere else on this glittering globe, it is possible, not only to dream but, to live a life in which respect for one's self and others is expected and encouraged, where excellence and decency imbue our institutions and attitudes, here, where all things are possible.
It is in the nature of life itself that our Garden is constantly under attack from the insects of insolence and weeds of confusion and avarice. That is why it has always required tending, this Garden of ours, and why it always shall.
Carefully and consistently tended, with a modicum of thoughtfulness, a dollop of respect and the good grace to care, we may ensure that our Garden shall endure.
And so, when the child turns to go or the visitor is called home, I would hope that they will understand that, when we chose to etch these words into this stone, our message and the honoured names, that what we meant was to thank our forefathers and mothers for this most valuable gift of freedom, this Canada, that we will indeed enjoy its bounty and we will respect it, and each other, as they did. We, too, shall do our best to leave it, better than when first we came.
GcSloan
