May 10, 2026

Brave Armenia

Speech delivered at the Official Commemoration of the 111th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

Armenian General Benevolent Union
Saint-Laurent, 805 Manoogian Street

April 25, 2026

Stéphane Dion

Former Member of Parliament for Saint-Laurent – Cartierville, then for Saint-Laurent, from 1996 to 2022

Currently Diplomat in Residence

Faculty of Arts and Science
Université de Montréal

It is both a great honor and an overwhelming responsibility that the Armenian National Committee of Quebec and the Armenian General Benevolent Union have placed on my shoulders. Being your guest of honor on such an occasion is a tremendous honor. Finding the right words to commemorate the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide is an overwhelming responsibility.

For 21 years as your Member of Parliament, from 1996 to 2016, I attended all the commemorations. Each time, the guest of honor was a great professor, a distinguished historian, who presented the facts to us with relentless rigor. I could never compete with such erudition. What reassures me is that I know this is not what you expect from me. You are not asking me to improvise myself as a historian of this tragedy in history.

However, it is precisely this strength of conviction of the historians, their solid consensus, their highlighting of the events, and their firm conclusion that what had happened truly constituted a genocide, that led me to play my role so that the government of Canada, under the leadership of Paul Martin, would recognize the fact and call the Armenian Genocide a genocide.

I was not the only one; parliamentarians from all parties played their role, including our late senator Shirley Maheu, but my influence with the government and the Liberal caucus may have been positive.

It touches me deeply that you still remember it today. But since I have never boasted about it, I really wonder how you found out!

The recognition of a genocide must remain a very rigorous and demanding exercise. A genocide is an attempt to exterminate a people as a people. That is what it is, nothing else.

Parliamentarians are under strong pressure to label any massacre, any war crime, a genocide. The expression ‘genocide’ then comes to our lips to denounce everything that disgusts us, revolts us, all the abominations that make our hearts rise. It is used as the worst word in the vocabulary. Not to call a horror a genocide is to expose oneself to the criticism of being indifferent to the fate of the victims and lenient toward the crimes of the perpetrators. It is to be accused of heartlessness.

But if we thus start calling every crime a genocide, we will have to invent another word to recognize a genocide.

When I was Foreign Minister, I did everything to ensure that the House of Commons reserved the term genocide for genocides, that is to say, it must be repeated, for attempts to exterminate a people as a people. I paid the political price for it with my parliamentary colleagues, many of whom were saying: but why not call every tragedy a genocide every time we are asked? It’s all political gain for us.

So I repeat it today, on this great occasion given to me, that it is a mistake not to call a genocide a genocide recognized as such by a strong historical consensus. But it is also a mistake to call every historical tragedy a genocide to the point that the term loses its meaning.

However, while it is important to denounce genocides as genocides and to never forget them, it must be understood that in doing so, we alert humanity not only against the repetition of genocides, but also against all the dangers, all the horrors of hatred and war of aggression.

In the invitation letter they sent me, the National Armenian Committee of Quebec and the Armenian General Benevolent Union recall an eternal truth which, in one form or another, is repeated at each commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, namely that to avoid the mistakes of the past, one of the conditions is not to forget them.

Honoring the victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915 is not only to reflect in memory of each of these human beings whose lives were shattered, but also to reaffirm our commitment to historical truth, justice, and the prevention of crimes against humanity.

It is to reiterate our commitment to peace and harmony between peoples, in a context where the hydra of war reappears.

It is in the face of this resurgence of war in various parts of the world, which causes many loss of human lives, including in Armenia, and which provokes horrible humanitarian crises, including the one caused by the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, that on July 7, 2021, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, the late Marc Garneau, entrusted me, as Special Envoy of the Prime Minister to the European Union and Europe, with the mission of examining options to increase Canada’s support for democracy in Armenia.

In my 72-page report, submitted on April 6, 2022, I argued that while democracy is declining worldwide, Armenia, according to official international indices, manages to advance its own in an exceptionally commendable way, even though it is surrounded by a difficult and hostile environment. I pointed out that for Canada, under such circumstances, supporting the efforts of Armenians to improve their practice of democracy is to commit to democracy worldwide. Armenia is the archetype of a democracy under intense pressure that strives to improve and, consequently, deserves to be fully supported by Canada.

Of course, among my recommendations, was the need for a permanent Canadian presence in Armenia, an ambassador, and an embassy in Yerevan.

I argued that if it has never been easy for Canada to ensure its representation in Armenia from its embassy in Moscow, it had simply become impossible with Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Relations with Russia had deteriorated so much that the staff of the Canadian embassy in Moscow had been considerably reduced over the past few years.

The right solution was to establish an embassy in Yerevan, as was the case for all the other G7 countries. And that is what the Government of Canada did, by appointing the excellent Andrew Turner as ambassador.

Canada has a lot to offer, but also a lot to learn, notably from less fortunate countries like Armenia where democrats struggle under conditions that Canadians would find hard to imagine.

In a world where democrats must face the tough competition of autocrats, too few countries are going in the right direction. Among the countries on this short list, Armenia is one of the champions. Despite setbacks, it remains the regional leader in democratic development, well ahead of Georgia and, of course, incomparably, far ahead of Turkey or Azerbaijan.

I am convinced of the truth of Alexis de Tocqueville’s axiom, this 19th-century French political thinker who argued that the risks of war decrease with the advance of democracy. The more two countries in tension move towards democracy, the more they improve their chances of finding common ground permanently. To speak frankly, the blessed day when Azerbaijan makes decisive progress towards democracy, Canada will have to increase its presence in this country. By doing so, Canada will support the democratic transition in Azerbaijan as well as the prospects for a true, just, consolidated, and lasting peace with Armenia.

Democracy has been too rare an exception in the history of humanity, and we should therefore not be surprised that its progress encounters a formidable opponent, autocracy. Some democratic states show admirable resilience. Deliberate and sustained efforts will be needed to support democracy and reverse trends toward regression. In this struggle, Canada has an important role to play.

It is true that Armenia’s progress in terms of democracy and the fight against corruption, admirable as it may be, remains incomplete, fragile, and reversible, but that is precisely why it needs the support of well-established countries in this regard.

Armenian democracy needs Canada and especially Canadians of Armenian origin. Canada, which has benefited so much from the extraordinary contribution of these Armenians who knocked on its door, has a debt to Armenia that its citizens, sons and daughters of Armenia, are best able to fulfill.

Montrealers and Quebecers of Armenian origin make excellent Canadians, who succeed in so many fields. I encourage you, young people – and older ones too! – to let your talents and energy percolate to the benefit of Armenia. In doing so, Canada will also benefit.

I have gained a lot from my contact with you, Armenians of Saint-Laurent – Cartierville. One of my great prides is the day you named me an honorary Armenian. I did not know that this would be in preparation for the presentation by the President of the Republic of Armenia, on October 23, 2023, of the Medal of Gratitude, la Médaille de la Gratitude, (I would not dare to pronounce its name in Armenian!).

I, who nevertheless make my own Churchill’s three injunctions regarding medals (never ask for them, never refuse them, never wear them), proudly wear this medal on my heart today, in gratitude for the tremendous inspiration you have been and will always be for me, and for Canada. As a testimony to the immense emotion I felt during each of my stays in Armenia, carried away by the breathtaking beauty of this mountainous country and the depth of its millennia-old culture.

Thank you so much, merci du fond du cœur, and since the same word is said in Armenian: mersi!