Remarks by Bob Delaney: October 16, 2008
Meadowvale Secondary Graduation

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They really know how to organize a graduation event at Meadowvale Secondary School. It's at the Living Arts Centre, and every graduate gets a moment on centre stage in front of a packed house. It is a pleasure for me to bring greetings on behalf of the Province. Some people asked if they could get a copy of my remarks. Here is what I said to the Meadowvale Secondary Class of 2008.

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Distinguished guests, patient and professional faculty, parents, families, friends and neighbours. And graduates.

Doesn't that have a nice sound to it? You are now graduates! It is the end of secondary school. And to every end, the sun shines on a new beginning. It is the end of secondary school, but the beginning of university for some, a career in the trades for others and working life for others still. It is the end of your time at Meadowvale Secondary, and the beginning of a lifetime where you will keep learning.

It is the end of adolescence, and the beginning of adulthood, with all its promise, its challenges, its risks and its rewards.

Those of you here will grow to be employers and employees. You will serve in the professions and trades. Many, if not most of you, will be moms and dads yourselves.

A few of you will surprise yourselves, and possibly everyone who knows you, by achieving success, or wealth, or fame, or influence far beyond anything you can imagine right now. I hope you will each find that your destiny in life teaches you what you likely already know right now: that family and friends, honesty and integrity, and serving others represent value far beyond what you will find in wealth or accolades or in the exercise of power.

The generations before you settled this vast land, and built its cities. They fought for our freedom, and built a strong, prosperous and peaceful land called Canada. In our own time, in your own memory, we've put most of what's worth knowing onto tiny computer chips. We have larned that prosperity, productivity and the environment can exist together.

In your time, during your working life, which will span the first half of this 21st Century, you will bring to bear the very best of your energy and skills to overcome climate change. It is the defining challenge of the first half of this century. You will succeed not just because this is now your world to manage; not just because you have the inspiration, the skills and the determination to do the job; but because failure is not an option.

You will travel the world, alone and with others. As a group of men and women, you will meet the people the world has to offer, see its wonders and its sights, and experience the variety and diversity of our whole planet. But in your travels and in your thoughts, you will always return back here, to where your values were formed, to where you first called home. Back to Ontario, back to the most blessed place in the best country on the face of the earth.

On behalf of the Government of Ontario, I bring you congratulations from your Province. We are all so proud of each and every one of you. Good luck on your journey from here through life.