PHOTOS: Hungarian President in Canada, she met even Katalin Karikó

Hungarians are liked and recognised in the Canadian province of Ontario, and the Hungarians here can count on Hungary as much as on Canada, President Katalin Novák said in Toronto on Saturday.

Attending the closing night of Hungarian Heritage Month in Toronto, Novák said she felt it was her duty to be aware of Canada’s Hungarians, to care for them and to be proud of them. She is committed to work for Hungarians to be better understood and recognised in the world, she added.

Novák said October is a special month for Hungarians, the “month of freedom”, when Hungarians celebrate the acts of great Hungarians who won the world’s recognition, but the world was not brave enough to help the people who started the uprising in October 1956 to complete their revolution.

She said it would be great if Hungarians today could turn towards the future with all their might and called for an end to the war in Ukraine as soon as possible.

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Novák handed over the Hungarian Order of Merit to László Radványi, President of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, whose parents arrived to Canada as 1956 refugees, and Michael Tibollo, member of the Ontario Provincial Government of Italian origin, who was one of the initiators of the enactment of Hungarian Heritage Month into law in Ontario.

Novák also met Hungarian-born biochemist Katalin Karikó in Toronto on Friday. Karikó received the Gairdner International Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious medical science awards on Thursday.

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Source: MTI