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[ Background noise ]
>> By the authority vested in me by the Senate
of York University I hereby confer on you the Degree
of Doctor of Laws honoris causa admitto te ad gradum.
Congratulations Peter, wonderful.
[ Applause ]
>> Can we get you in the middle here, in the middle.
[ Applause ]
>> Chancellor McMurtry, President Shoukri,
faculty, staff, graduates.
[ Background noise ]
And their family and friends.
[ Background noise ]
Dr. Mansbridge, I think I could get used to that.
We'll have to ask them to change the opening for the program
at night, The National with Dr. Peter Mansbridge.
[ Background noise ]
You know this moment at convocations is supposed to try
to encourage the new graduates as they head out into
that larger world with some words of wisdom.
My favorite memory of days like this goes back a fair number
of years to a man by the name of Lorne Green who most
of you wouldn't remember but some of your parents
and grandparents would.
Lorne Greene was a CBC news announcer during the second
world war and he was a great news reader.
His voice was powerful, strong and they called him the voice
of doom because the news that he often brought to bear,
especially in the early years of the war was very difficult.
After the war he decided to take up another profession
and become an actor and a very successful one,
he moved to Hollywood and he ended up I guess best known
for a role he betrayed on a western through the 1960's
on television called Bonanza where he was Pa Cartwright.
Well at a point near the end
of his broadcast career he was invited back to Canada by one
of our other great universities and given an honorary degree
and after it had been conferred upon him he came
up to the podium and he looked out at the graduates
and he said, my advice is buy a good bed, you're going
to spend a third of the rest of your life in it you want
to be comfortable and then he sat down.
Now it was pretty good advice and you want
to leave this day trying to remember at least one thing
and I'm sure nobody in the audience
that day forgot Lorne Greene's advice, I'll try
and do a little different.
I am truly humbled that York University considered me worthy
of an honorary degree.
And I am doubly honored that I get to share the experience
with so many of you, who got here the hard way,
the traditional way.
I'm the Chancellor of Mount Allison University.
It's one of my other duties, and I'm very fortunate
to have that position.
It too is a great honor.
On the day last year that I was installed as Chancellor ...
I thought I would try to prove that I was still pretty young...
young at heart anyway...
by communicating in a youthful way to those about to graduate.
So I tweeted part of my address.
Now let me try again...
not speaking as a Chancellor, but as a very grateful recipient
of a York degree, and as a speaker at this ceremony.
First, I should enlighten some of those
who have come to watch you today.
Some of whom may not know what a Tweet is.
A Tweet is a message that's sent
through an internet service called Twitter.
And the message is limited to 140 characters.
That includes spaces and punctuation.
So you can see the challenge...
trying to put something meaningful into 140 characters.
There are lots of gimmicks.
People use short forms to try to reduce their character load.
So if I was going to Tweet today's message,
I'd say: "Congrats grads.
Hope u learned lots at York.
Go now and do good.
Be proud. Be happy.
Make generous alumni contributions.
Best 4 the future."
That's 140 characters.
Now, let me use Twitter as a launching pad of sorts to talk
about the world you are going to try
to navigate after graduation.
Because Twitter and Facebook and all the other ways
to communicate instantly without regard
to national borders have all made our world move
incredibly fast.
So fast that it's impossible ...
literally impossible...to keep up with it all.
Faster than anyone could have imagined not too long ago.
Now... faster IS better in many ways.
Slowness carries a price.
Here's my favorite example of slowness carrying a price.
The War of 1812 between Canada and the United States.
One of the biggest battles
in that war was the Battle of New Orleans.
It was a big American victory.
That Battle was fought on January the 8th, 1815.
Now here's the remarkable thing.
A treaty ending that war had actually been signed 16
days before...
on December 24th, 1814.
In Belgium.
But news traveled so slowly in those days,
that no one on this side of the ocean knew anything about peace
until sometime in February.
So more than 350 men were killed in a battle that took place
AFTER the war had ended.
Now YOUR world isn't anywhere near that slow.
In fact it moves so quickly, you may find it hard
to find time for things like...
Thinking. Reflecting.
Considering.
I think you've got to make sure that you make time
for those kind of things.
For just as slowness carries a price, so too does speed.
Now I'm not suggesting we go back to 1812.
Even if we could.
But let's do some thinking....
some reflecting...
some considering...
before you grab your degree and dash headlong
into the world that's waiting for you.
Let's use our imaginations for a couple of seconds and say
that this day was happening, one hundred years ago.
What was life in Canada like in 1911?
How different was it from 2011?
You think things are changing fast now?
In 1911, we had a population of 7.2 million.
That had gone up by 33 percent
in just 10 years...the greatest rise
in any decade before or since.
In 1911 alone 331 thousand immigrants arrived in Canada.
We don't plan to absorb that many newcomers THIS year.
In a country with a population 5 times greater.
Imagine the competition for jobs back then.
A hundred years ago...
cars were becoming a much bigger part of Canadian life.
36,000 of them sold in Canada in 1911.
The speed limit in the cities was 13 kilometers an hour.
But if you got out on to the highway,
you could really open it up.
It was 24 kilometers an hour there.
Of course we smile at how slow that was.
But it didn't seem slow in 1911.
It certainly was a lot faster than most horses ever went.
We take it as completely routine today that women graduate
from university by the thousands every year in Canada.
And that women enter the workforce
without any constraints.
In 1911 more than two and a half million Canadians worked outside
the home.
Just 350 thousand were women.
Most of them were teachers, nurses, domestic workers.
The point I'm trying to make is
that change has always been part of being Canadian.
And that every generation believes its challenges are the
greatest in history.
In reality...
no generation has an easy path to success.
And you won't either.
You'll have to be smarter than any generation has ever been.
You'll have to be more flexible...
learning every day of your life just to keep
up with advancements in your field.
You'll have to be willing to change jobs, change employers,
change your skills sets possibly.
Frankly, I can barely imagine what your life will be
like in 20 or 30 years.
But I do know this.
I know that you are up to the challenge -
as both the Chancellor and the President echoed a few
moments ago.
Do you know why we're so confident of that?
Because we Canadians always have been.
That imaginary University class
of 1911 I was talking about was real.
They would face a world war just three years later.
Then they went through the Great Depression.
And later in life...
another world war.
Through all that, they managed to build a country
that we are all so blessed to live in today.
And though I've been talking about that class
of 1911 as a collective...
in fact, I'm really talking about individuals.
Because that's how achievements are reached.
Each one of you has not only the opportunity to contribute
to our society, you've got the RESPONSIBILITY to do that.
Take what you have learned at York,
make our country and our world better.
This is not a day for pessimism...
or for cynicism.
In fact, I think we can all agree
that those attitudes are rarely helpful.
So take the opposite approach.
You are special.
Every one of you.
You are adults who will be asked to lead us.
To make decisions for us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American poet and essayist,
once said something I think is worth repeating.
Because it captures a circumstance
that we all face from time to time...
and that you will face more often as you take
on greater responsibilities...
and more difficult leadership roles.
Here's what he said: "Whatever course you decide upon,
there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.
There are always difficulties arising which tempt you
to believe that your critics are right.
To map out a course of action and follow it
to an end requires courage."
Which I guess is another way of saying, follow your heart.
Follow your instincts.
Know what you believe in, and work for it.
Don't let anyone..
or anything...
stop you. When you walk out of York
for the last time you will be following in the footsteps
of those who walked this same path before you.
They helped build a better Canada.
So can you.
So WILL you.
The accomplishments of some of you in the class
of 2011 will be written in our history books.
But you should each understand
that we have faith in EACH of you.
Every one of you.
Faith in your ability.
Faith in your character.
We know that you will be a force for good.
And all the good that you do, will never be told
in just 140 characters.
So congratulations.
Enjoy the day.
It's yours.
Thank you.