Malala Yousafzai back for honorary Cdn citizenship, delayed by 2014 shooting
Posted Apr 12, 2017 11:51:57 AM.
Last Updated Apr 12, 2017 05:18:11 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has arrived on Parliament Hill and has been bestowed honorary Canadian citizenship.
Yousafzai was greeted on the steps of the Centre Block by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as a parade of dignitaries, cabinet ministers and diplomats inside the rotunda beneath the Peace Tower.
Moments later, Trudeau presented her with a certificate documenting her as an honorary Canadian, only the sixth person to receive the honour and the youngest ever. He also presented her with the flag from atop the tower.
The 19-year-old Yousafzai is in Ottawa to receive honorary citizenship from the federal government as an acknowledgment of her tireless work in the name of girls’ education.
She will also address MPs and senators in a joint session of Parliament, becoming in the process the youngest person ever to do so.
The pomp and pageantry comes more than two years after an initial plan to honour Yousafzai was interrupted by a gunman who took the life of a Canadian soldier and stormed Parliament Hill before dying in a hail of gunfire.
Yousafzai surprised a group of students at an Ottawa high school earlier today where she was introduced to cheers by Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau.
