Hon. Amina Gerba: Colleagues, I’m very pleased to be with you here again for the Forty-fifth Parliament. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all of our new colleagues.

I rise today in recognition of Africa Day, May 25, which commemorates the founding of the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, on that date in 1963. On that day, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia said, and I quote, “History teaches us that unity is strength.”

Sixty-two years later, that unity has grown even stronger with the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, a coalition of 54 countries with a combined GDP of more than $3.4 trillion U.S.

Africa has 1.4 billion people — 1.4 billion consumers — and some 70% of them are under 30 years old. This dynamic and ambitious youth cohort is a force the world must reckon with now and in the future. Africans are now setting their own development priorities, as laid out in the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.

Colleagues, in March of this year, Canada reached a historic milestone by adopting the first-ever Canada’s Africa Strategy. I would also note that, on May 12, the City of Montreal passed a motion officially designating May 25 of each year as Africa Day. We have with us in the gallery the mayor of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, the lead on this ambitious proposal in Montreal’s municipal council, along with members of the Fédération Africaine et Associations du Canada, the FAAC, which initiated the proposal.

As the Co-Chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, I warmly invite you to the dinner reception we are hosting tonight in collaboration with the group of African ambassadors.

I look forward to seeing you at the SJAM at 6 p.m. today.

Thank you.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.