Address from Secretary General, Dr. Pierre Duplessis - June 16, 2007
It gives me great pleasure to gather with all of you today to reflect on all that we have accomplished together over the past year. I will never take for granted our good fortune as Red Cross staff and volunteers that the measure of our achievements is the improvement of people’s lives.
I join our president in thanking our hosts here in beautiful Newfoundland. In fact, my words but echo the thousands of people who have attested to Newfoundlanders’ famous hospitality. I have read and listened to those testimonials after 72 planes were diverted in Atlantic Canada on September 11, 2001. It was one of the greatest operations in Canadian Red Cross history. Can you imagine responding to the needs of over 46,000 unexpected visitors? The people of Newfoundland and the Atlantic Zone demonstrated to the world what it means to be Red Cross.
In this part of Canada, Red Cross is as vibrant as ever here delivering humanitarian support through 33 branches across the province. Just one remarkable example of their great work is a partnership with North Atlantic Refining to promote injury prevention through the Safety Champion awards.
These awards recognize a person who has saved a life or prevented a tragedy. In each of the last three years, North Atlantic Refining has donated $20,000 to Red Cross’ public education on injury prevention, reaching over 50,000 people across the province. Congratulations on this excellent initiative.
Our Red Cross ‘Zone’ host has enjoyed a major success recently at their first ever Atlantic disaster management conference, held in Moncton as mentioned yesterday. The conference was an inspiring example of Red Cross leadership in disaster prevention, preparedness, response and mitigation. Congratulation to John Byrne and his team for a job well done.
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Leadership scholar, Joel Barker has said: “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”
Our President shared with us some outstanding examples and statistics that capture many of the significant accomplishments that have helped change the world and the conditions of vulnerable people. I want to provide you with an overview of some of the action behind the scenes this year to achieve our vision.
This past year, we focused on increasing our preparedness by identifying and addressing our own areas of vulnerability.
A significant threat to the Canadian Red Cross is the impact of a potential global influenza pandemic. In response, the Canadian Red Cross has developed Society-wide contingency plans that will enable us to respond in the face of a health disaster that affects our own human resources.
We recognize that the key to effective disaster management —domestic or international—is partnership. If we aspire to enable people affected by disaster to survive the initial aftermath; if we aim to support their longer term recovery; then we must have strong government, industry, and non-profit collaboration. To this end, we contributed to capacity building in several sectors with a focus on partnerships.
Firstly, the Red Cross strengthened collaboration between the voluntary and the public sectors. Our disaster management team led a project that explored how the sector could support government public health and emergency management officials’ response to a health care emergency. The project resulted in two major publications on sustaining volunteer emergency response in an episodic context and a framework for the voluntary sector in health emergencies.
Over the last months, we strengthened a number of partnerships with external organizations that are vital to any response. Two examples include agreements with Public Safety Canada and the Canadian Medical Association to better coordinate our response to major emergencies.
The Canadian Red Cross also has initiated work on a new project, building a partnership with the private sector. Borrowed from an American Red Cross program, Ready When the Time Comes engages local companies and organizations as Red Cross disaster partners, allowing us to train their employees as disaster response volunteers. Partners commit to making these employees available for service for at least one day each year. When a local, large-scale disaster occurs, we call upon these partners and deploy their volunteers.
A great example of joint corporate capacity was launched this past February in the Western Zone. I had the pleasure to participate in the opening of the new Disaster Response Centre in Vancouver, British Colombia. It is a state-of-the-art facility capable of responding to local, national, and international disasters on short notice. It includes the TELUS Red Cross Call Centre that can handle ten thousand calls per day. The response centre has already been activated in the recent response to flooding in that province.
Communities have always represented a critical partner for the Red Cross. One example of our efforts in this area is our continued expansion of partnerships with aboriginal Communities. The RespectED program, Walking the Prevention Circle was developed in close collaboration with aboriginal communities and has expanded this past year thanks to a three year grant from the National Crime Prevention Centre. In total 73 Aboriginal communities in Quebec ad Atlantic Canada will participate in this capacity building model.
I could not address partnerships without mentioning CIDA. Jane has described the difference we are making in the health of so many vulnerable children in Africa thanks to our partners, CIDA and the national Red Cross societies in the countries where we are working. Last week in an opinion editorial piece in the Ottawa Citizen, economist Jeffrey Sachs, a globally recognized voice on issues related to poverty and the millennium development goals, endorsed our program as a means for directing Canadian international aid.
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Building partnerships means expanding our network. Promoting humanitarian issues and building knowledge in broader Canadian society is critical to achieving our vision. In the core area, Humanitarian Values, we moved forward on a number of key issues.
Thanks to the Red Cross youth, close to one thousand workshops and events on humanitarian issues were organized across the country in the past year. These events challenged Canadian youth to be active global citizens and to use their power to make a difference locally and globally. I am excited to see a number of young people here with us today, and look forward to hearing about how they believe they can strengthen their vital role in the future Red Cross.
We also were active in promoting respect for International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Red Cross staff and volunteers brought IHL and the role of the Movement to life through training exercises with the Canadian Armed Forces and journalists. We surpassed by more than three times the objectives that were set for this year.
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This being said, let me now turn to how we discharged our responsibilities as a national society of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
In order to build our capacity to respond to disasters as a member of the International Federation, we trained over 30 health personnel to be part of what is known as Emergency Response Units or ERUs and thus partner with other Red Cross and Red Crescent. The initiative stemmed from the Red Cross Québec Zone and I salute its vision.
The operating environment of the Red Cross has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Complex disasters and conflicts have prompted the Movement to better understand and more clearly define what the auxiliary role means for governments, stakeholders, the general public and those within the Red Cross. In preparation for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Conference in 2007, the Movement has encouraged National Societies to initiate an exchange of ideas with their respective governments on their status as “auxiliary to governments.”
The Canadian Red Cross is one of the first national societies to undertake such an initiative. In Canada, the year 2009 will mark the one hundredth anniversary of The Canadian Red Cross Society Act of 1909 which outlines our historical responsibilities. This past year we secured funding from Public Safety Canada to carry out nation wide consultations. The feedback we get from these consultations will help shape our role in emergency management and other emerging areas as we look to redefine this Act.
In summary, we are continuing to build and expand on our operations towards the Canadian Red Cross mission: to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity in Canada and around the world. We cannot achieve this alone. Thank you to our partners, donors, volunteers and staff.
I have outlined our work behind the scenes that makes our operations possible. Now I want to mention a few driving forces behind governance and operations.
Our president, Jane McGowan is a very generous person, passionate about youth, committed to development, and absolutely dedicated to health improvements in less developed countries. You have seen this with the video presentation. It is always a source of inspiration to work with such individuals and share their sense of compassion. Jane helped me not only to do my job as secretary general, but to facilitate the transition I am in now and made those present opportunities a reality. I am immensely grateful to her. The Society is blessed to have a great talent in the person of Jane; she will finalize the hiring of a new secretary general, catalyze a five-year strategic plan with a thorough consultation, re-engage youth and bring to completion the Tsunami operations.
She and the rest of the board of governors ensure that our actions achieve the vision of our organization. I want to thank her and the rest of our generous and wise Board members.
Special words to Paul Wharram who has been my deputy secretary general over so many years, notwithstanding his “behind the scene” role as a mentor on the Movement affairs throughout my 10 years with the Society. What a sensible and gifted person. Multi- talented, hard working and absolutely trustworthy. Thank you Paul.
The last quarter of our year, sadly, saw the retirement of an individual who has contributed so much to the Canadian Red Cross over the past 31 years. Deputy secretary general John Mulvihill was a man of action with a passion for bringing change to people’s lives. We also saw the departure of chief financial officer, Larry Mills, who was instrumental in increasing our financial stability and streamlining operations. I want to thank both John and Larry for their contribution to the Canadian Red Cross and for the legacy they handed to us.
This year saw the building of a new senior management team: François Couillard, deputy secretary general, operations and chief operating officer; Michel Piché, chief financial and corporate services officer; and Hélène Mousseau, chief information officer. They are infusing new energy into our operations. Although they have been on-board for only few months they have been fully engaged from the start - impressive!
I also want to pay tribute to the senior management team, to the general managers who achieved so much this year in all zones, and to our staff and volunteers.
I know that with all of you, the Society is in good hands.
Madame president, as you will see in our Annual Report, both on the program side and the financial side we are in very good position.
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Now, dear friends, as I noted in the beginning of my speech today, this is my final address to you as secretary general. Please indulge me in some reflections for these last minutes.
I have had the privilege of serving the Society through an incredible period in its history. We resolved the past with transferring, restructuring and repositioning. Three simple words, but three words heavy of significance. And once that period was over we found ourselves jettisoned in a growth mode with the Haiti flood, Tsunami, Pakistan earthquake, Katrina, Afghanistan, Iraq and CIDA malaria’s initiative to name just a few.
We have emerged from a tragic and turbulent period to become a vibrant, confident and innovative organization.
It has not been easy. And we are needed now more than ever.
My thoughts are as follows:
An incredible amount of wealth has been created over the last century.
The unequal distribution is increasing like a river that flows in two separate streams, one which gets increasingly larger, and the other that dries out few kilometers away.
“The Haves and the Have-Nots.”
This is NOT acceptable.
Some mind boggling numbers:
- One million people die of malaria each year –a tragedy that is largely preventable
- One third of humanity lives on less than $2 per day while…
- … for each dollar of assistance there is $10 in the affluent countries devoted to military budgets
- HIV AIDS claims three million lives per year and infects a further five million –many of whom do to have access to antiretroviral therapy
- 2.6 billion people do not have access to drinkable water and seven billion dollars would solve the problem
- Seven billion is the amount of money Europeans spend on perfume or Americans on ice-cream
- The 500 richest people on earth have the revenue of 400 million poorest people
Equity is also needs to be part of our Canadian agenda:
- homeless people dying on the street in winter
- kids going to school without a breakfast
- aboriginal population being three times more at risk for suicide, tuberculosis, violence and abuse, and reduced life expectancy
- illiteracy
- single mothers in poverty
- abuse and neglect
This is NOT acceptable. And we will NOT accept it.
I have learned that distribution of wealth is THE issue of the millennium to come - the unresolved dilemma of the 2nd millennium during which I was born and raised and spent almost all my professional years.
I learned that improving the situation means creating…
- sustainable peace in countries
- acceptable living conditions for people
- access to primary education for all
- equality of women and girls.
We are far from being there but we – humanitarian organizations – have the possibility, and thus the responsibility, to change things.
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Remember Joel Barker’s quote: “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”
Ladies and gentlemen: we do have a vision; we do have the means, so… let’s go for action and change the world.
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It is time that I finish this speech.
I thank the Board, volunteers and staff once again for having put their confidence in me over ten years.
My wife and I, as you may know, are passionate about mountain climbing. There is a famous quote by Hans Kammerlander which reads “The goal is the peak, but the victory is the return to the valley.”
I repeat: “The goal is the peak, but the victory is the return to the valley.”
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Mr. Paul Wharram, dear colleague and friend, here is my ID card.
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I am proud to say out loud today that the Canadian Red Cross is vibrant as ever.
I am proud to say that the Canadian Red Cross has “safely returned to the valley”.
Madame president, board of governors, members and national representatives, volunteers, staff and friends:
“END OF MISSION.”
