加拿大总理哈珀接受扶轮基金会授予的“根除脊髓灰质炎冠军奖”发表的讲话

PM Delivers Remarks in Toronto

Toronto, Ontario

18 October 2014

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.

This really is a tremendously generous recognition for you to bestow.

And on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I am very honoured to be awarded the Polio Eradication Champion Award from your organization, The Rotary Foundation.

I just want to say I am accepting this award not really on my own behalf, first of all on behalf of the entire Government of Canada which has obviously, as Wilf so accurately said, been a champion of this for over 25 years.

But I think just as importantly for...on behalf of the Canadian people who have supported this, and of course our related efforts on maternal and child and newborn health, so generously over these past several years.

It really is the generosity and the support of Canadians that allows us to do things like that, and I’m accepting this on their behalf.

Now ladies and gentlemen it isn’t just of course the Canadian public at large that we thank, but also Canadians and organizations like yours who have partnered with us, and particularly Rotary International which has really made this your centerpiece, your great cause, over the past quarter-century.

And tremendous progress has really been made as Wilf outlined.

We are, as you know, very close.

Unfortunately we felt we were very close now for some time and we know that troubling developments in a couple of parts of the world have prevented us from crossing the final goal line with polio eradication.

But this is still a tremendous achievement.

In most countries, including this one, what was a devastating illness for literally tens of thousands of people every year has now been virtually eliminated as a common concern.

However it is not gone.

It is not gone.

And as we were discussing backstage what has happened recently with Ebola reminds us that in an age of globalization and particularly global trade and travel what was a problem that was one time far away from us could arrive at our shores very quickly.

So this is why we must continue to fight to secure the eradication in the few places where polio remains, but also why we must continue to push people everywhere to understand that this is a threat, to continue with their immunizations which have been so important in the progress we’ve made so far.

Look, those are my messages.

I know they are the same as yours.

And once again I want to say just what a pleasure, what an honour it is to accept this on behalf of successive governments, on behalf of Canadians, but also from you, Rotary International, who have done so much in a great cause that has been a benefit to all humanity.

And I can assure you that we will be there all the way until we finally cross the goal line and see this terrible disease eradicated from our planet.

So thank you.