Honourable senators, I am very proud to rise today to address you for the first time.

My colleague Senator Plett was in Vancouver and some other people were in Winnipeg for another event. I was in Winnipeg with my francophone community.

For anyone who remembers, in the 1970s, bilingual pop singer Pierre Lalonde sang "In Winnipeg, the nights are long . . . The earth is flat there . . . and life is too." He should have come to visit Winnipeg last week for Centrallia 2016, the fourth edition of the global small and medium-sized business forum organized by the Agence nationale et internationale du Manitoba and the World Trade Centre Winnipeg.

The nights were short for the 700 participants, most of whom were senior executives from across Canada and over 30 other countries. I am drawing your attention to this unique event because it was organized by two bilingual organizations whose offices operate in French.

ANIM and the World Trade Centre Winnipeg were created by francophone visionaries in Manitoba. Their main goal is to promote trade and attract investment that will benefit Manitobans and all Canadians, while adding value to the francophonie in Manitoba, in Canada and internationally. Had Mr. Lalonde been with us at Centrallia, he could have stayed up all night discovering just how dynamic Manitoba's francophone community is in the economic sphere.

The global francophone community has seen strong growth since 2010, and according to the Observatoire de la langue française, French will be the second most common language in the world in 50 years. This trend has not gone unnoticed in Manitoba.

If Centrallia wasn't enough to satisfy his appetite for a little more excitement, Pierre Lalonde could have celebrated the 70th anniversary of CKSB, Canada's first French-language radio station outside Quebec, with his Manitoba cousins. Created in 1946 thanks to donations from francophones, CKSB continues to make its voice heard as a Radio-Canada affiliate.

Mr. Lalonde also could have come and said hello to the Honourable Maria Chaput to thank her for her 13 years of dedicated service to official language minority communities through her work as a senator.

Come to think of it, Mr. Lalonde probably wasn't wrong about the long Winnipeg nights, but not for the same reasons. Now the nights are long because they are so busy. Thank you.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!