Address to convocation by Dr. Edward Roberts
May 30, 2003
Memorial's Senate has done me great honour by conferring an honorary degree upon me. It falls to the President, as chair of the Senate, to tell an honorary graduand about the Senate's offer, and to ask whether he or she accepts the invitation. I was quick to do so, for two very different reasons.
The first, and by far the more important, is that I consider Memorial to be one of the great institutions of Newfoundland and Labrador. The second, simply put, is that one is asked to speak to Convocation. I hasten to add that Dr. Meisen, in extending the invitation, made it a point to say that a speech should be no longer than 15 minutes, or thereabout. One of my more perceptive friends, a long-time colleague on the Board of Regents, has kindly pointed out that this stricture doubtless arose from Dr. Meisen's dealings with me during the years he and I served together on the Board!
I'm going to make three points, and only three points. They are intertwined, each with the other. First, I'm going to speak about Memorial. I want to speak directly to my fellow graduates, the young men and women who have today reached a very significant milestone in their academic careers. Second, I'll turn to the evolution of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador - the challenges and opportunities that lie before us, and Memorial's contribution to our economy, and to the growth of this province.
And, finally, I shall talk about public service, and my own lifelong commitment to Newfoundland and Labrador and to her people, as we live today and as we can live tomorrow.
Memorial University of Newfoundland is one of the greatest achievements wrought by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador during the centuries of our long and troubled history. It is a great accomplishment to have built one of Canada's very best universities in a society which has not been blessed with affluence. Memorial, as we know her today, is a proud and happy monument to those who made it their life's work to build a great academic institution here in St. John's. They were men and women of vision and courage, tenacity and strength. We are all indebted to them.
I've had my share of interesting, challenging, and rewarding jobs during my 40 years in public life. I've drawn great satisfaction from the opportunities and responsibilities that have come to me - as a member of the House of Assembly; as a Minister and as the leader of a political party; and as a barrister, one who toils in the law courts. But I've no hesitation in saying that the best job I've ever held is that of the Chair of the Board of Regents. (It's far too early to talk about being Lieutenant Governor: I'm still trying to find my way around Government House!) The best part of that best job was the opportunity to work with Memorial's students, her staff and her faculty, and the administration. They are the women and the men who have made her the great academy she is today, and whose determination to make her an even better one inspires and guides their every effort. I can conceive no greater honour than to become a graduate of Memorial. Thank you, most sincerely, for making me one.
It's a particularly pleasant coincidence that my long-time friend and colleague Art May is also being honoured by Memorial today. Art has done great good for our province and our country - as a scientist, as a public servant - and as Memorial's President. He merits the honour the Senate has conferred upon him. I am proud to share the stage with him today.
For today's graduates, your families, your loved ones and your friends, this is a day of pride and happiness: pride - justifiable pride - in your accomplishments, and happiness in your success. I congratulate you. Earning a degree from your University, particularly the first degree, as is the case with most of you here today, is an event one long remembers. Graduation can fairly be compared to going through an open door, which closes behind you. But the new room in which you find yourselves is one with many doors.
Milton Berle once said “If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.” It is this type of ingenuity that has characterized the generations of Newfoundlanders who came before us, and it is this type of ingenuity that will frame your own future success.
I'm not here to preach. But I do want to tell you that Newfoundland and Labrador is a great place in which to make your home, and that Canada is a great country in which to live and work. We're blessed in so many ways. Pierre Trudeau, a great Canadian Prime Minister, once said, “We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.” We think we have problems and challenges, and we do have them in measure. We hear about them every day, and on every hand. But we must not lose perspective. Don Jamieson, a good friend and colleague of mine and a great Newfoundlander who became an even greater Canadian, used to ask us, rhetorically, whether we would be willing to trade Canada's problems and challenges with those of any other nation. Neither he nor I ever encountered anybody who said “yes” to that question.
On the edge of an often unforgiving Atlantic Ocean, Newfoundlanders befriended the waters and built a society based on the fishing tradition. Today, while we acknowledge that perhaps we are seeing the end of the cod fishery, as well as possibly serious threats to the crab and shrimp fisheries, it is important that we - as did our fathers before us - turn our attention to the opportunities which arise from adversity.
Hardship fosters innovation. Memorial University has risen to the challenge - it has grown and developed to meet the needs of an evolving economy and has worked tirelessly to prepare our people to take their place in that brave new world. In 1997, we became an oil-producing province. Memorial has done much to support this new industry, most recently by means of the Oil and Gas Partnership. Supported by a strong Earth Sciences Department, the Partnership will help to ensure that our young people are fitted to participate fully in this new sector of our economy, and to help it to reach its full potential.
The Business school, too, is making an important and significant contribution. Its facility and students have established a tradition of excellence. The Faculty's graduates have already had a major and beneficial impact on our economy. They will do even more - much more - in the years ahead.
We are becoming a province of older men and women, as the birth rate steadily declines. What impact does that have on our school systems, and on our needs for medical care? Memorial's Medical School has become one of the stars in our crown. The many hundreds of men and women it has trained, and the highly-trained and skilled doctors who have come here because of the School, have made our health-care system immeasurably better than if it had never existed.
I take pride and joy that fate allowed me to play a key role in getting it started, while I was Health Minister in 1969 and 1970.
The problems and concerns that trouble us today pale into insignificance when compared to those we would have to face if there was no Medical School.
Memorial has become an international centre of excellence for Telemedicine - cutting edge technology to serve the rural populations. I am proud to point out that Max House, my predecessor as Lieutenant Governor was a pioneer in that field, which works to serve the needs of our changing population, and people throughout the world.
While preparing for the new, Memorial has also taken seriously her responsibility to preserve, to encourage and to enhance the rich and vibrant culture of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Music School goes from strength to strength - perhaps soon it will offer a course in Patsy Cline and Hank Williams - as does the Fine Arts program at Grenfell. Folklore and Archaeology have won world-wide acknowledgment for their work.
And then there are the thousands upon thousands of young men and women who've taken degrees in science and education and social work and arts and nursing (including those of you who've done so today). All have been well served by Memorial: and our province and our country have been well served by them.
And that brings me to the third chord I wish to strike today. My life - cast in such eloquent words by our orator - has been spent in the public arena. Perhaps the most important of the freedoms in the free and democratic society in which we Canadians glory, and in my view the most cherished of them, is the freedom to choose, to choose what we will do with our lives and how we will do it and with whom we will do it. It's for each of you to decide what you will do with your own life. I offer no advice about your choice. But I do say to you that there is no finer way to spend one's life than in public service; there is no better way to use one's talents than in trying to make our world - or at least your own little piece of our world - a better place.
Teddy Roosevelt - the first Roosevelt to be President of the United States - said this far better than I can, in his famous “Man in the Arena” speech. Let me use his words, then:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those whose cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
My political credo is a simple one. I believe that we are each other's keeper. That's been the beacon I've followed for more than 40 years, since I threw myself into the world of politics and public policy issues. Whether I have achieved good or not is for others to say. I am forever and constantly grateful for the opportunities I've been given. And I'd do it all again, given the chance.
I am an eternal, incurable optimist, but much hard-won experience - I didn't get all this gray hair and scars quickly or easily - has taught me that true optimism is founded in realism. Five hundred and fifty thousand of us inhabit a very large Island and the even vaster expanse of Labrador. Some view our declining population and its challenges as daunting and even overwhelming: to me, a challenge is simply an opportunity waiting for one to reach out and grasp. Memorial has turned challenges into opportunities. She has adapted and evolved to meet the needs of Newfoundland and Labrador and she has grown and prospered in the process, to the collective benefit of our people.
There will always be some of her graduates who will want to live and work elsewhere in Canada, by choice or because of economic necessity. I encourage you to adventure - for the world is like a book and those who do not travel read but one page. But I also encourage you to bring the knowledge and experience gained back to Newfoundland and Labrador.
I have never regretted - not for the most fleeting moment - my decision to make my home in Newfoundland and Labrador. Nor have I ever regretted my decision to join in the public debate about issues which affect our province and her people. As with any politician, I've known peaks and valleys, successes and failures. But I would do it all over again in an instant, if I could.
I am an incurable optimist, as I said a moment ago. There is much to be optimistic about in Newfoundland and Labrador today. You are the best educated young men and women in our history. Notwithstanding all the unmet needs and the unsatisfied demands that we hear so much about, we have built the best educational and medical and social services in our long history. Our standard of living is the best we've ever known, and while it's fair and correct to say that much needs improvement, we have still made a great deal of progress. Above all, we have become a province where we have confidence in ourselves, a people who know we can do the job.
I said earlier that we are all indebted to those who made it their life's work to make Memorial the institution that she is today. The best way to repay that is to carry forward the work they began and to build on their achievements.
We Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have the strength and the knowledge to make this a better world. We have the courage and the wisdom, and the desire and the commitment to do it. We can make this a better place for ourselves, and for our children and for our grandchildren. I urge you, with all the force and conviction I can command, to join in doing so.
Tennyson said it well, in the concluding lines of his great poem about Ulysses.
“Come, my friends.
`Tis not late to seek a newer world.
... but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.”
Each of you has reached a milestone in your life today. Memorial's motto, Provehito in Altum, I'm told by my colleagues, can best be rendered in modern English as “launch forth into the deep.” Go forth today and do so. And take my best wishes with you as you do.
Thank you.
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