Mayor, Sam Sullivan, welcomed the Dalai Lama for a three-day visit to Vancouver for public dialogue on peace, compassion and kindness, and to draw attention to the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education.

Vancouver Sun: Interview Transcript

Mayor Sam Sullivan:
First of all, I would like to acknowledge and respect the traditional
territories of the Coast Salish First Nation People; and I would like to
welcome you to Vancouver. Thank you for blessing us with your presence. And
I know you are here to discuss the Dalai Centre for Peace and Education. And
Vancouver is very honoured that you would consider us: the only city in the
world, to have a centre with your name on it. Thank you.
And obviously you have a lot of people here who are very interested in your
joining us. So, please have a seat.

Dalai Lama:
Thank you.

Question:
Welcome back to Vancouver, Your Holiness. I know you’ve had a long flight,
or many long flights. I wanted to ask you about how you feel about being an
honourary Canadian - only the third person to be given such an honour.

Dalai Lama:
I want to say, firstly, ‘Thank you,’ Mayor, for your welcoming.

And of course, I’ve been a few occasions here so I’m very very happy once
more to come to this place. As the Mayor stated [in our private
conversation], it is a young city, but a multi-culture and a multi-ethnic
one. I always have the strong feeling that the whole world, the whole
planet, is becoming just one entity, one polity. So in that respect a
multi-cultural world. I think those towns that already have multi-culture,
multi-racial society, they live harmoniously, and consider common interests
first. Then in the meantime, they preserve individual identities. I think
that’s a good pattern for the future of the world. That’s my feeling: and
often I express this.

Then, to your question, I come from a snowy land. Canada is also similar. So
I feel great honour to become an honourary citizen. But I would like to ask
you as mayor [turning to address Mayor Sullivan], when you become honourary
citizen, what are the rights, what are the privileges. I want to know more
of that, so I should not miss all these rights and privileges. And then I do
NOT want to ask what is duty, because my visit is just short. A short visit.
So [I] will use all the rights and then say good-bye [without doing the
duties].

[sustained laughter]

And then of course few thousand Tibetans settle in this country, very
happily. So I will also become one of them. So I really feel very happy. In
any case you’re [treating] me as a brother. Actually, entire six billion
human beings are brothers, sisters. You have to live together. You have to
share, our common world, our one world.

I think the time has come. We must educate in that respect. These quarrels
here and there, in the name of religion, in the name of different races,
different countries, different political system, economic system. Fighting:
useless. Suicide.

Question:
I know that your doctors a few months ago asked you to take a few months off from traveling. how you manage to keep up your energy and stamina on trips like this.

Dalai Lama:
Some time back, coughing, with fever. At that time I thought I may be
getting tuberculosis. TB. Then one day, I thought that if I were TB patient,
I might get more rest. [chuckles] So, then one new experience this time,
because of the coughing, antibiotic, so it creates more trouble in the
stomach. I don’t know.

Question:
People’s Republic of China has suggested that granting you honourary citizenship of Canada might harm relations between the two countries. How do you respond to their making such a suggestion.

Dalai Lama:
I think you should judge. In my view, my opinion, in the past like Norway’s
case, I think one occasions my visit there and also meeting some of the
leaders there, the Chinese government made some serious protest. But then
afterward, not much consequences. So I don’t know. I don’t know.

But, I’m very sorry. Where ever I go, it always creates some inconvenience.
I’m very sorry. But hopefully, not [by] my mistake. [chuckles]