Remarks by Thomas S. Saras, President and CEO of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, at the introduction of the Awards ceremony at the L. Governor’s Suite, “Music Room”, at Queen’s Park, Toronto.

Thomas S. Saras

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2014 at 6:30 pm. 
Your Honour, Chief Eric Jolliffe and D. Chief Peter Sloly, distinguished Guests, members of the diplomatic corps, Ladies and Gentleman:
It is an honour and a great privilege for me and my colleagues to be welcoming you today to this function, the celebration of the 37th annual recognition of the impact members of the ethnic press and media and also, members of the ethnic communities, have on the Canadian society.
It is also a great honour to be one of the very first voices to express our congratulations, on the occasion of your appointment to the august office of the Lieutenant Governor of the leading and great province of Ontario. Please allow me to say that this appointment makes every member our society proud for the country and its institutions. 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 have achieved previously, during the times you served our fellow Canadians and I am sure you shall set such standards of excellence again.

Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell

Your Honour, we are most grateful to you, for by honoring the tradition of your predecessors their Honours James K. Bartleman and David C. Onley, for hosting this event on behalf of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, which represents 750 Canadian publications and electronic media from all over Canada, in more than one hundred languages, other than English or French, knowing as Canada’s Other voices. By doing so, you have not only honored our organization but also the entire ethnic communities of our great multicultural country. For this gesture, we are most grateful to you, as we are grateful to your staff, this wonderful and dynamic group of men and women, for their help and enthusiasm, which exists far beyond the sense of their duty. To this extend our organization will make a donation to the Pen Canada on behalf of your office.
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 Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Kathleen Wynne as well as our political leadership and the TD Bank Group, for their recognition, support and help to our organization.
Today’s celebration, also, is a recognition of some leaders of our public and private institutions, of their considerable contributions to our democracy and also to multicultural fabric of our society.

Peter Galiatsos - Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell

As a nation, Your Honour, we seek spiritual union with all those who love freedom. Although of many bloods and diverse national origins we stand before the world as one people united in a common determination. To uphold the ideal of human society, which would substitute freedom against despotism and promoting brotherhood in the government of the world.
As our government is based on the belief that people from different cultures and traditions can live together and also can be united, strong and free. This is a principal of the modern world, which our nation exemplifies in the motion that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom. 
We are advocating as we try to teach our communities that we should embrace our diversity, as this is the only way that people will avoid to do any harm to one another, in order to be considered a truly civilized society, and this is the reason of today’s special recognition of both chiefs of the police forces of this great and most multicultural cities of the world, as in fact, they embraced and exercise mainly as their daily policy.
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. The unity of our country is another basic element of our chapter. 
As we are leaving in a democratic society, our instrument is honor and friendship, our goal as 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 all together we are building our common culture and civilization. In the pursuit of these principles, our editors, writers and publishers are working hard to spread knowledge of the world’s events and to inform their audience of the Canadian political and social systems, in their neighborhood, as well as in every corner of planet, to new and old citizens of Canada and the world about Canada.

Today we salute their contributions and recognize their struggles for human rights, for equal opportunities, for peace and understanding among the Canadians and the world and for social justice and respect for all humanity.

With their outstanding efforts we managed to bring change and progress in our society, in order to prevent any form of oppression, injustice or hatred, which is a virus designed to attack on our peace-loving Canadian society.
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 they achieved and we recognize their distinguished contributions.
By our recognition this evening’s recipients we acknowledge our appreciation for what they have done so far for our communities and at the same time we wish them luck and encourage them to continue these wonderful efforts in the future.

Finally, we want to express our gratitude to all participants in today’s ceremony, as they contributed the most to the success of this event with their presence.
In final note our gratitude to the members of the awards committee and the chair Dr. Mohammad Tajdolati, for their hard and difficult decisions.
We earnestly hope that our organization n will forge ahead to greater accomplishments and achieve the most by working together and using our collective influence.
Thank you again for being here and allow me to extend our congratulations to all today’s honorees.