Lunar Year Extravaganza, 2005 Year of the Rooster

Message by Hon. David Kilgour

Chinese New Year Address
Edmonton Chinatown Multicultural Centre
February 5th, 2005

Thank you for inviting me here to celebrate the New Year with you. It’s a pleasure to be part of this important fundraising event, and to see all the effort that’s been put into these displays by the diverse cultural groups from our community.

Hope and New Years

Though it often seems like there are many people in the world today trying to divide cultures and religions and pit them against each other, there are, as I’m sure you all know, often more similarities in humanity than differences. The celebration of the New Year is one such occasion.

You could be in China, in Southern Africa, in Latin America, or even here in Edmonton around the time of the New Year and you will always find people gathering together, with friends and family, in the spirit of symbolically moving forwards, and looking towards a more positive future.

In light of all the recent disasters and conflicts around the world, I can’t think of a better occasion to mark—an occasion dedicated to the idea of hope.

And indeed we have much to be thankful and hopeful for.

As I’m sure you know, just last week, insurgents in Iraq released eight Chinese labourers they had taken hostage and threatened to kill.

These eight men, whom we saw kneeling and pleading for life, were given a second chance and thus, a New Year.

Given the fact that Asia-Pacific is the source of half of our new immigrants and there are over a million Chinese-Canadians in Canada, we all watch with tremendous care and interest as China continues to grow and move towards an even brighter future.

May that future, and this new year, be filled with good fortune, peace, and above all; hope.

Thank you, again, to the Edmonton Chinatown Multicultural Centre for organising this grand occasion, and I thank you for inviting me here to share it with you.

Bonne Année!

Sun Nin Fy Lok!

Xin Nien Kuai Le!