Queen hails Canada on human rights

The Queen has praised Canada's commitment to preserving basic freedoms as she dedicated the corner stone of the country's new museum for human rights.

The monarch's tribute came after she unveiled the symbolic monument which contained a stone from historic Runnymede in England - the site of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

The £200 million building designed by the American architect Antoine Predock was the vision of the late media mogul and philanthropist Israel Asper and is slowly rising from the ground in the Canadian city of Winnipeg and is due to be completed by 2012.

At a concert for human rights that followed the dedication ceremony held yesterday the Queen told the assembled guests who included Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Duke of Edinburgh: "A few moments ago, I unveiled the cornerstone of the new Canadian Museum of Human Rights.

"This building will, in due course, rise up to take its place on the Winnipeg skyline. But it is also a symbol of the importance which Canada attaches to human rights and its own role in promoting them at home and throughout the world.

"An integral part of this cornerstone is a smaller stone taken from the meadows of Runnymede in England where Magna Carta was signed in the year 1215.

"That document was itself the cornerstone of democratic rights and gave rise to the rule of Constitutional Law that now flourishes across the English-speaking world."

During the day the Queen saw one of only four copies of the 1217 Magna Carta. It is being toured around Canada and was on display at Government House in Winnipeg, the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of the province of Manitoba.

The historic document was 'sealed' by King John and formed a peace treaty with his barons who were in revolt against their monarch's arbitrary government and called for certain rights to be recognised which the sovereign did.

Before the dedication ceremony the Queen and Duke walked across Esplanade Riel, a pedestrian river bridge that led them to the site of the new museum in an area called The Forks - an ancient meeting place for some of Canada's First Nation people.

(2010-07-04/UKPA)