Our history, our interpretation of our faith is anchored in the intellect and we rejoice in investing in the human intellect.
Published on Sep 4, 2015
May 25th, 2015: Queens Park, Toronto. His Highness the Aga Khan and Premier Wynne signed an agreement between the Province of Ontario and the Ismaili Imamat that sets a blueprint for cooperation in a number of areas including culture and education.
“Today Ontario and the Ismaili Imamat have signed really a historic agreement of cooperation to explore areas of cooperation and joint initiatives including education, diversity and economic development.
I have known for some time the depth of commitment to education and to community involvement and to inter-generational sense of responsibility within this community and it is remarkable so I just want to acknowledge that.
This Agreement is I think a partnership that’s going to allow us to have a mutual benefit in terms of Education, sharing of resources but also in terms of policy development and that was the conversation His Highness and I were just having.
The discussion about pluralism that is so important to the world, yes it is important to the Ismaili Imamat, yes it is important to Ontario, but it is important for the world that we have a better understanding of how pluralism can work and I think the language in the agreement is exploring how we can encourage a disposition towards pluralism I think that is so critical and I don’t think that any group of people is positioned better than this collective group to have that discussion.
I am very excited about what we can do together, the Ismaili Imamat is really an ideal partner and I hope we will be an ideal partner in Ontario in return.”
– Kathleen Wynne, Premier, Province of Ontario
“I want to tell you how happy and grateful my community and I are for this agreement that we have just signed.
Our history, our interpretation of our faith is anchored in the intellect and we rejoice in investing in the human intellect.
It’s part of the ethics of what we believe in and it’s part of what we believe distinguishes us obviously from the environment in which we live.
So, the agreement that we have is giving us new opportunities to widen our exposure to education in the industrialized world, but to widen that education within a context where our values are the same.
That is very important because it’s clear that with a global community such as the one of the Ismaili community we need to invest in global values, in values which can be applied to any society, at any time, in any part of the world. And this is what we are finding in Canada that we will have a partnership with you and in investing in that partnership, we’re investing in a profession which I have to say, has difficulty in the developing world.
There are three professions in the developing world which are undervalued. First is nursing, the second is education and the third is journalism. And yet all those professions are critical for the development of a quality civil society in the third world.
The partnership that you have allowed us to create is going to come in and assist us to reposition one of the greatest professions that we need in the third world.
So I would ask you to think of this not only in terms of what we will be able to achieve in terms of collaboration, but in a much wider context of the teaching profession and its position in the developing world.
But then we were discussing something else, we were discussing dialogue, we were discussing policy, we were discussing what ideas we need to move forwards in various parts of the developing world and sharing these ideas, talking about them openly and freely between the context of common values, shared values is an absolutely wonderful opportunity and I thank you very much for making that possible.
Thank you.”
– His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan,
49th hereditary Imam of the Ismaili Muslims
Ismailimail 