Ottawa, Ontario – Once again this year, MP for Miramichi Tilly O’Neill Gordon acknowledge the Robbie Burns Day, observed annually on January 25, the birthday of the famous and cherished Scottish poet.

“There are many people of Scottish descent in the riding of Miramichi, and I am proud to mark this day as a celebration of an important figure in their culture,” said MP Tilly O’Neill-Gordon.

The remembrance of Robert Burns at dinners in homes across the country is a tribute not only to Burns the poet, who is justly lauded and loved around the world, but also to those Canadians for whom Burns has been and continues to be an inspiration.

“There are people who have carved a place for themselves in Canada’s heritage and Robert Burns is one of them. I am pleased to join all Canadians in toasting his life, his works, and his “Immortal Memory,” said Ms. O’Neill-Gordon.  

Burns’s poetry has a timeless appeal because its themes are universal, as relevant to us today as they were to eighteenth-century Scots. In his day, Burns conquered the linguistic and cultural divide between the Highlands and the Lowlands that characterized Scotland at the time, exemplifying the possibility of a peaceful coexistence between two distinct cultural traditions. As a proud Scot, the Bard of Ayrshire immortalized his homeland as the “birthplace of valour, the country of worth.” As a poet of the Enlightenment, he celebrated the essential equality of men of good faith the world over. For Burns, regardless of ancestry, accent or birthplace, so long as he is “honest,” of “independent mind” and possessed of “the pith o’ sense, an pride o’ worth,” then “A Man’s a Man for a’ that.”

“Through his work, Robbie Burns passed on strong values, such as equality and respect for others, and we would do well to embrace them, now more than ever,” added Ms. O’Neill-Gordon.