Your Excellency, Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen

It was hot summer of 1920 when thirty thousands or so Czech and Slovak soldiers were passing through Canada on their way home.

Through Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and other Canadian cities, legionaires were returning back to Prague after years of bravely putting their lives on the altar of democracy, fighting many times stronger forces of Bolsheviks all over Russia.

Keeping the enemy in check, they retreated eastward all the way from Ukraine, across Siberia to the Far East corner of Russia where they boarded on US, Canadian and British ships.

They enjoyed that one week on the beds of Pullman coaches enormously - since for many of them it was first time in six years they slept in bed, with their head on a pillow instead of bag with grenades.

I still remember reading of this journey in the diary of my great grand father – I was just little boy when I found an old notepad at our dusty attic.

Some of his words still ring in my ears, as he wrote:

“Bolsheviks sound very convincing – they have full mouth of justice for everyone…Yet their deeds speak up more than any sweet words ….they turn the whole society upside down…Now thiefs and thugs are ruling the country with hundred million souls…and that´s just a beginning….”

But lets get back to North America – it was two years before the Czechoslovak army enjoyed Canadian hospitality - on October 10, 1918, when group of Czech and Slovak politicians, headed by Tomas Gariggue Masaryk met in Washington DC. They put together few sentences, which not only made history, but make perfect sense still now – 90 years later.

“Czechoslovakia will be republic, based on full freedom of thought, religion, science, literature and art, speech, press and assembly. Church will be separated from the state and our democracy will stem from universal suffrage. Women will be politically, socially and culturally equal to men…. “

Two weeks later this text will become Declaration of Independence of Czechoslovakia and TGM and his friends will become founding fathers of a newly created state called Czechoslovakia: 

Czechoslovakialasted for whole seventy five years. But only the first twenty years of prosperity and world class democracy fulfilled the dream of the founding fathers.

Later on, somehow, Czechoslovakia always found itself on the intersection of the superpowers´ territorial interest. And somehow it ended up in the wrong hands time and time again.

We found ourselves on the wrong side of the statement of the British premier Neville Chamberlain, who on the eve of Munich agreement, that basically sold Czechoslovakia to Hitler, said:

How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is the we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing…

We found ourselves on the wrong side of the iron curtain again in 1948, when my great grand father saw communists turning his beloved country upside down. Hating Bolsheviks from his youth, he managed to see Masaryk ideals killed by them - he survived only few years to die from broken heart, caused by lack of freedom and democracy.

And as soon as we started to hope in better tomorrow, Prague Spring of 1968 was silenced by the sound of soviet machineguns.

Somehow all three subsequent occupations happened in “fate-full eight years”, as we call them.

And time and time again these eights saw the bond between Czechs, Slovaks and Canada growing stronger - many of my compatriots run from the country of their birth.

This time they did not ask Canada for Pullman sleeping coach, but for opportunity and most importantly, new hopes for the future of their children.

And time and time again it was Canada that extended its arm and welcomed them all. Canada embraced them and they embraced Canada.

They became true great and proud Canadians. To name just a few well known Czech Canadians from the 1938, I would put forward Peter C. Newman, Joe Schlesinger, Tomas Bata and Oskar Morawetz.

1948 saw Otto Jelinek, Jan Rubes and Hana Gartner running for their lives with Karel Ancerl and Joe Skvorecky in 1968.

They were followed by thousands more, doctors, teachers, businessmen, scientists. All together, according to the last census, Canada hosts eighty thousands Czechs and 30 thousands Czechoslovaks. And they are giving it back wholeheartedly to the country that embraced them and gave them second chance.

And this is why we are here today, proud of our heritage yet very grateful to Canada.

Thank you Canada.