Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
ST. ANDREW’S SOCIETY DINNER
Caboto Centre, 1055 Wilkes
Saturday, November 25, 2023, 5:00 p.m.
(please check against delivery)
Friends and members of the St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg, its a pleasure to join you in keeping this long and revered tradition alive.
As Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, I honour and acknowledge that we are gathered in the heart of Treaty One land and the heartland of the Red River Métis.
This beautiful and diverse province is the ancestral and present-day home of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota Inuit and Métis peoples.
Together, we must continue to work to hear truths, to advance understanding, healing and opportunity for all.
In a province with the largest Indigenous community in Canada and a large share of the population with Scottish roots, there are countless connections of kinship and friendship uniting both communities.
As we work to build a more inclusive, more just and more prosperous Manitoba for all, these ties have an important role to play.
The Scottish story in Manitoba was already at least a century old when the first St. Andrew’s Society dinner was held here more than 150 years ago.
Since then, generations of artists and scientists, leaders and builders with family origins in Scotland have helped to build the Manitoba and the Canada we know today. In areas as essential as public health care and transportation infrastructure, we benefit from the accomplishments of Scottish Canadians.
We have absorbed influences of Scottish culture in our passion for curling and in the wealth of Canadian singer-songwriters carrying on the tradition of the celtic bards. And across Canada, when we wish to make a gathering especially stirring and soulful, we call on the pipers.
Today, the St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg helps to keep that heritage alive by supporting pipe and drum bands, Scottish dance, festivals and education programs. And of course by carrying on traditions like this dinner.
In an ever-evolving Canada, in which we welcome and cherish new traditions with origins around the world, the cultural heritage of Scotland remains an important part of who we are.
For a century and a half, members of the St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg have worked to nurture that cultural flame and to pass it on. To all who support the society and to all who make this annual celebration possible, thank you for keeping the thistle growing in heart of Canada. Bon appetit and slainte (Slon tcha).
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich. Shalom.
