Hon. Amina Gerba: Honourable senators, on May 18, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association.

I would like to pay tribute to the co-founder of this association, which I have the privilege of co-chairing today, our former colleague, the Honourable Raynell Andreychuk.

The Honourable Senator Andreychuk is a visionary who is passionate about Africa. She is an experienced diplomat who spent a good part of her working life in Africa, where she served as Canada’s High Commissioner to Kenya and Uganda and then as Canada’s Ambassador to Somalia.

She was appointed to the Senate in 1993, thus becoming the first woman from Saskatchewan to serve in the upper chamber of Canada’s Parliament.

After taking her place in the Senate, she realized that no one was talking about Africa, except in the context of development aid or the role of some African countries in the Francophonie. She also realized that our country didn’t have a foreign policy on Africa, even though we had such policies for most other areas of the world.

For all these reasons, she thought that we needed to establish direct parliamentary relations with the 54 separate countries that make up the African continent. In her opinion, our country needed to develop a foreign policy for this continent that she had the opportunity to visit and get to know well.

With the help of the late MP Mauril Bélanger, she co-founded the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association in 2003 and, together, they served as co-chairs until 2016.

Over the past two decades, the association has organized bilateral missions to 34 African countries, forging direct relationships with African parliamentarians and promoting our democratic values in the countries visited.

Honourable senators, I am honoured and very proud to pursue the path charted by the Honourable Senator Andreychuk, to hopefully one day achieve a true partnership and rapprochement between Canada and Africa.

Thank you.