It’s not every day that a Canadian university student has an audience with the prime minister of France and Christian Petit-frère used his ten minutes of fame to say thank you to Canada’s only bilingual liberal arts faculty.
“I was destined not only to survive, but to flourish as a Canadian,” Petit-frère told Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, in Toronto March 14 to promote the benefits of cooperation between Canada and France to the Empire Club of Canada. “I am proud of my new country. I am proud of this great nation founded upon principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. These things can only be a success with the power of education, the power of academic institutions like my university, Glendon College.”
Petit-frère and his three younger siblings moved to Canada in 2011 after a year spent living in a Haitian refugee camp for survivors of the 2010 earthquake that killed 220,000 people, including Petit-frère’s parents and older sister. The 21-year-old began undergraduate sociology studies at Glendon last fall.
Attending university fulfills a lifelong dream, explained Petit-frère. “Since I was a kid, there was no question that I would go to university. I’m so passionate about education, it was so important for me to continue my studies.”
A native French-speaker, he chose Glendon because of its bilingualism and location at the heart of Canada’s largest city. Ultimately, Petit-frère hopes to earn a degree in public policy or law and return to help rebuild Haiti. His emotional speech packed a powerful message of the importance of liberty and equality and the role universities like Glendon play in cultivating the next generation of global leaders and game-changers.
“I am here because Canadian society, like French society, is founded upon the principles by which the social class of an individual, his or her skin colour and his or her country of origin are not barriers to success.”
Education, he says, opens the doors to new ways of thinking and acting. “Haiti is a country in trouble. It needs people who have the education and the confidence to inspire positive change. Glendon is giving me the tools to copy with university life and prepare for life in general.”
“With an education like this, anything is possible.”
