Our Director (Faytene Kryskow)'s Speech To Our Parliamentarians At Our 2008 Parliamentary Reception:

Good Evening! If you have not already heard it from one of our young people we want to begin by say a big WELCOME to all our of our Parliamentarians! (Applause and whooting). We appreciate you and we thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be with us this evening. We really hope it will be a refreshing time, a tasty time and a fun time for you as you connect, heart to heart, with young people that have come from both far and near to honour you. That is what this night is for. It is our way of saying thank you to our Parliamentarians for their tireless service both to their constituents and to all Canadians. Plainly put: we think you are awesome! After these brief remarks we will encourage you to continue to eat, mix, mingle, dance and enjoy the amazing company in this room! Stay as long as you want to!

Also in just a moment, I am going to call up a couple of our young people to share a brief word with you, but before I do, let me honour those of you that might be a little new to the MY Canada Association by giving you a quick introduction to who we are and why we are here this week. For those of you that are familiar with us – we are so excited to bring a good report to you regarding the growth and effectiveness of the organization since our last Parliamentary Reception, a year ago. Many of you have been a deep encouragement to us as you have given us advice and coaching about how we, as young Canadians, can apply ourselves in helping to shape Canada for future generations. As the director of MY Canada I want to say that in SO many ways, the good report I am about to bring is in honour of you and your great input!

The MY Canada Association began in 2005 when a group of young adults from Vancouver received a deep conviction that it was time for a non-partisan voice to begin to emerge from the young generation in Canada and engage in meaningful dialogue with our national leaders. Canada had the young Liberals and the young Conservatives, young new democrats but what about simply the YOUNG CANADIANS who were willing to work with every party and who were passionate to see Canada strong for generations to come? At this same time, there were several voices both in national media and voices coming from this very Hill who would say blanket statements like, “The youth of the nation believe this, or young Canadians believe that…” Often these blanket statements were very socially liberal, at times extremist and very digressive from the founding principles that have made Canada great in so many ways. Without getting into all the semantics of these statements and their ideologies we simply felt that more often than not these blanket statements made of the next generation did not represent us. At the same time we realized that we were not doing our job! If this was the perception of young Canadians, we must not have been engaging in the awesome system of democracy in an effective way. We were not ‘showing up’ and that needed to change. I think we would all agree that with the lowest voter turn out in recent Canadian history just occurring in this past election, there is a need for young Canadians to SHOW UP. So off we went, and here we still are.

In 3 short years the MYCanada Association has grown to a membership and on-line network size of 30,000 with a strong internet presence. Along with this we have established a house office here in Ottawa where young adults can come for a 3 month internship to learn how they can be effective forces for positive change in Canada on a variety of fronts. Some of these young people have gotten so hooked that they have become long termers. We currently have 5 full time workers who have decided to dedicate this season of their life to the work of MY Canada.

Over this past year our leadership has traveled from coast to coast speaking and motivating Canadians in a variety of forums. We have personally hosted 5 events (a conference and 4 rallies) which, we realized just last night have had an accumulative attendance of over 11,000 people. These events have stretched across the nation we have hosted them in St. Hubert (Quebec), Nunavut (Iqaluit), Edmonton, Toronto and Saint John’s NB. We are excited to say that we are also ramping up for a very big year in 09 with perhaps our largest events yet coming in St. John’s and Vancouver.

Along with this, we mobilized, enthusiastically into elections all across Canada. We are so happy to see the SMILING faces of many MPs that we helped get elected in this reception tonight. It was our joy, privilege and honour and we are so glad to see your faces on this Hill. We had a lot of fun knocking on your doors, especially when people would change their vote simply because they said we were young and good looking – we’ll take it for ya!

Finally, a major and growing emphasis of the organization this past year has been media. As director of MY Canada I have been on national television at least once a week bringing a report from Parliament Hill to our viewership and beyond. Along with this we have been on several national talk shows – one of our favourite being a special feature with Radio Canada in Quebec. We are hooked on the camera – just some of you (admit it). Along with broadcasting media, our young people are watching national papers ever day and writing multiple op-eds a week under their own names. You are likely reading our words much more often than you realize.

We are growing every week and loving ever minute of it! Our nation is great and it is great to be able to contribute to her building in these and other ways. We count it a privilege and an honour to be right here, right now. We also want to say that we are committed. We are committed to working in any and every way that we can to support you as you bring forth legislation on issues that we are excited about.

A big hats off to Chris Warkentin for getting his Crystal-Meth bill passed, to Ed Fast for his internet pornography bill, to Joy Smith for her tireless work regarding human trafficking and the recent success of her motion at the Conservative Policy Convention (we can’t wait to see what comes out of that!), to Ken Epp for trumpeting women’s rights and protecting pregnant women through his work on the Unborn Victims of Crime Bill (WE LOVE IT and were so excited when this resolution passed at the Conservative Policy Convention a couple weeks ago), hats off for John McKay for his poverty bill that received royal assent, for the many AMAZING MPs that spoke out on behalf of Canadians opposing the controversial appointment to Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada, for Members from every party that supported raising the age of Sexual Protection. In our language we want to say, YOU GUYS ROCK!

It was a joy to work along side of you, speaking to committees and lobbying MPs to see these pieces passed. My first of 2 messages to you tonight is that we want to remind you that we are COMMITTED, I will repeat, COMMITTED to bringing our time, voice, network, technical ability, graphic design ability and whatever we can to the table to support other amazing legislation like this that you will undoubtly bring forth in the 40th Parliament. As we have said in previous years, we will say it again, “We are here and we are here to stay.” This is our Canada and we are taking responsibility for her. We truly want to see her strong for generations to come and we are committed to walking shoulder to shoulder encouraging our Parliamentarians as you seek to do the same. Our goal will either be to build our names and our organizations or our nations – I know, as I look around this room, that it is truly full of nation builders.

By the way (we will put in this plug) if you are looking for admiistraative staff, we do have a roster of amazing young people who have told us that they would be humbled by an opportunity to work in a Member’s office. If you are in a jam, feel free to let us know and we will get some great young people to contact you. Our heart is to serve. We know that as you are strenthened, in every way (which clearly includes good staff around you), Canada will be stronger – and if you have not caught on, we are all about that!

As the MYCanada director my second and last message to you is this: PLEASE, for the sake of this nation and future generations stand strong for the things that matter – family, safety, life, health and stewarding our great nation’s natural resources nation well. Continue to be men and women of courage. Canada needs it. Young people are hungering for it. Many of you have touched, trumpeted and prevailed against the injustices of our day but there is much left to do. To draw just one illustratiuon – the fact that Canada is the ONLY Western nation that has no laws on life for the unborn, in our assessment, is not a tribute to our progress but cowardice.

We have noticed, in the history books, there are really only 2 sets of names you read about: the outstandingly evil and the outstandingly, courageous, principled. Those who had no cause and lived lives of apathy and timidity are rarely remembered and rarely mentioned. We believe, in many ways, we are in a window of time where Canada is calling for men and women of fervent passion to rise with a cause beyond our pocketbooks.

William Wilberforce said once, ““If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.”

Where are the Wilberforces of our nation and of our time? The ones that will work for a cause of righteousness, mercy or justice until it is the standard in society.

Be men and women of courage.
Do the right thing – if you don’t know what the right thing is, ask us and we will give you our perspective on a variety of issues.
Be the solution, be the righteous instigators of our time.
Stare evil in the face and say, “Not in my Canada.”
Don’t hold back.
You have been given the keys to this nation, in this moment of time.
Your timidity, excuses, or apathy, could cost future generations everything.
Your courage could deliver masses.

Why am I being so forthright? It is because I can feel the DNA of history shapers in the room who have the power to move mountains with words.

Mr. Trudeau – may I be so bold as to say, Justin, your name means Justice. How interesting that a young man with this name would be given the favour of tabling the first Private Member’s Bill. As you consider what to bring forward, our hope is that it would set standard of true and pure justice. Make the wrong things right. If you need some ideas of what to bring forward, we have a few and would love to share them with you. We are looking forward to the first chance we get to sit and share, heart to heart, with you and other new faces to the house.

Beloved Parliamentarians, Divine Providence has ordained that the well being of Canadians has been entrusted to you. The decisions you make will mentor, shape and in so many ways set the climate of this nation. Look in our eyes, listen to our voices, remember our faces – in them see the faces of your children and grandchildren.

For their sake and ours, leave this nation, better than you found it. We believe, we honour you, we appreciat you and want to say again that our hope is that togethere we will build a strong Canada for generations to come.

On that note, I would like to call up a couple of our young people to share their dream for this awesome nation they will inherit.