Archives - Paul Martin

October 14, 2004
Balatonoszod, Hungary

“Let me express my regret at being unable to participate in the roundtable session today. I wish you well as you exchange ideas, as you talk about your own experiences so that together we may learn from each other and build better governments for the people we represent.

The progressive philosophy of governance emphasizes equality of opportunity, mutual responsibility, and engaged citizenship. In Budapest, Canada hopes to contribute to the evolving consensus on how to achieve these ends. I would like to begin this contribution by sharing two things: our experience as we try to implement these principles at home, and our vision of how the principle of responsibility might be reinforced internationally.

After enduring decades of deficits, Canada has over the past 10 years demonstrated how to strike a balance between maintaining fiscal discipline and preserving social foundations. We have achieved an equilibrium in which we embrace and benefit from free markets while, at the same time, we are able to help those who need it most, at home and abroad. The best of the market and the best of public goods, in the context of balanced budgets – that is the balance we seek to maintain, for that is the balance that has made us strong.

When I was named minister of Finance in 1993, Canada was in danger of abdicating its fiscal sovereignty. We had allowed a culture of chronic deficits to take hold. We had as a nation been caught up in a vicious circle. Our budgetary shortfalls had a negative effect on business and consumer confidence, prompting the economy to lag, which in turn sent deficits soaring higher still. The cycle seemed endless.

We determined as a new government that we could not hope to be a force for good, we could not hope to build the type of society we envisioned, if we did not move swiftly to put our fiscal house in order. Progressive governance cannot be realized without the financial means to act on the issue that matter most to citizens. Without a balanced budget and a strong economy, there can be no prosperity to share.

And so we acted, making tough decisions, scaling back programs. Sacrifices were required but they were shared sacrifices. We did it together as a nation. And we did it with the goal in mind of a shared prosperity to come.

After seven consecutive balanced budgets, the vicious circle has been shattered. Canada now reaps the benefits of the virtuous circle, in which fiscal responsibility by government contributes to increased consumer and business confidence, which helps to keep our economy vital and vibrant, which in turns means an even stronger economy and continuing budgetary surpluses. Along the way we have been able to deliver the largest tax cut in our nation’s history while never failing in our commitment to fiscal prudence, to social responsibilities, to evolving security needs.

Over the last five years, our job growth and increase in living standards rank highest among the countries of the G-7. Our rate of unemployment has declined over the past decade by almost 40 per cent.

The upshot is that we are now in a position to think beyond the needs of our day and to plan for the future – our own future and that of the next generation of Canadians – in terms of ensuring our social programs are resilient enough to endure in the face of demographic and cost pressures.

First, we have done the hard work of reforming our public pension plan to make certain it will be financially viable for at least the next 75 years.

Second, we have committed ourselves to smart, sensible debt reduction, so that less money each year is devoted to interest payments.

Third, we recently secured a 10-year agreement on health care funding and reform with our provinces and territories – a long-term deal that will lead to real reform and improvements to the health system, underpinned with comparable information on patient outcomes to ensure greater accountability to Canadians. In the coming years, the financial pressures on our publicly funded, universally accessible system of health care will grow more pronounced. That is inevitable as our population ages and as beneficial but costly new forms of treatment are developed. To maintain our system, to preserve a social achievement that stands at the very core of the Canadian identity, we knew we had to take action now to place it on firm financial footing and ensure it is geared to the needs of the patient.

Fourth, we have recognized the need to invest in our cities and communities to ensure that they remain our signatures to the world – that they are able to afford the good roads, clean parks and better transit that are essential to our cities being great places to live and models of sustainable development.

Fifth and finally, we are moving on an ambitious course to make lifelong learning a reality by making post-secondary education more accessible, by developing programs to support skills training and continuous upgrading, and by creating a national system of early learning and child care – one that is high-quality, affordable, open to all and geared to development, so that our children get the best possible start in life and enter school ready to learn.

Internationally, Canada is proud to have been a leading contributor to the progressive agenda since the end of the Second World War. Canadians played important roles in the construction of the modern system of multilateral institutions and in the evolution of better approaches to development aid. And Canada has always been a champion of democracy and pluralism abroad.

Today, despite all the good achieved in the last 60 years, the world faces a daunting array of new challenges to its security, its prosperity, and its unity. I believe that Canada and like-minded countries should respond by reasserting our commitment to a progressive international agenda. Since its foundation, this network of progressive governments has agreed that its commitment to strong communities should apply abroad as well as at home. This aspiration is more relevant than ever. As I said at the General Assembly of the United Nations only last month, if we do not put our common humanity at the centre of our international policy, then we will not achieve real solutions.

We can begin by focusing on our mutual responsibilities. Canada sees five areas where progressive governments around the world can help develop the concept of responsibility within the international system.

First, we need to develop a responsibility to protect: the rules and political will that will allow the international community to intervene to prevent humanitarian disasters, such as the tragedy we see today in Darfur. We have offered $20-million to help the African Union to expand its efforts to restore security in Darfur, and we continue to urge other countries to help us make this responsibility real, here and elsewhere. We call on the international community to develop the systems of international law and accountability that will make it easier to provide multilateral intervention on the grounds of extreme humanitarian emergency.

Second, we have a responsibility to deny – to ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not spread to states or terrorists prepared to use them under any circumstances, and especially against innocent civilians. We call for stronger systems and greater political support for the international regime of non-proliferation and disarmament.

Third, we have a responsibility to respect human beings. This encompasses a broad notion of human rights that includes individual and collective rights and recognizes that cultural diversity is closely tied to freedom. We must be vigorous in identifying and confronting those who abuse these rights.

Fourth, we have a responsibility to build – not just infrastructure, but the public institutions that underpin economic and social success. Long term progress is most likely when individual citizens know that they can count on results – when they know that their community will repay their energy and responsibility with fair laws, consistent services, and an opportunity to be heard. It is the responsibility of every country to provide this good governance at home. As an international community, we also have an obligation to support each other in our efforts to provide it. As we have seen in Haiti, development aid can have only limited impact if a country`s public institutions do not function. As progressives, we should commit ourselves to helping countries with the difficult task of building or re-building the systems that constitute a successful state. It is this kind of painstaking, detailed work that is necessary to avoid or mitigate the tragedies of failed and failing states.

If we build in this way, we will create the conditions for prosperity. The United Nations Commission on the Private Sector and Development made it clear that, in the developing world, a thriving private sector is fundamental for the alleviation of poverty. It calls on governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations in both the developed and developing worlds to establish the conditions in which this local entrepreneurship can flourish.

We can also build the conditions for prosperity by establishing trade rules on which we can all rely, so that the world`s wealth will not only increase, but increase fairly. Canada welcomes the framework agreement reached by the members of the World Trade Organization in July, which will allow the Doha Development Round to proceed. It must do so – we need it to point the way to the reduction of agricultural subsidies that distort trade as well as limiting opportunity for many countries in the developing world.

Finally, we have a responsibility for the future – a responsibility to preserve and enhance opportunity for our children. We must pursue a collective, strategic, and responsible approach in many areas – including the management of the oceans, of natural resources, and of space. This is equally true for the most basic element of opportunity – our health. Canada knows too well the dangers of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and SARS, whose devastating impact is blind to borders. That is why a progressive approach to defence against disease will require more than money. It must also involve collaboration, and a commitment to the big picture. We recently announced a contribution of $100-million to the World Health Organization to help to build the technical support for its “3 by 5” program, which aims to extend drug treatment to three million HIV/AIDS sufferers in the developing world by 2005. This initiative appealed to us because it will provide leverage, making other efforts more effective by providing the infrastructure they need to succeed.

These five points comprise one perspective, the Canadian perspective, on how we can best discharge our mutual responsibility. International affairs will continue to present new and difficult challenges, and progressive nations in the developed and developing world can never be complacent. We must continue to experiment, to try new approaches, to learn from each other, to try and build consensus.

It is in this spirit that we have proposed that the leaders of about 20 developed and developing countries should meet to discuss, from many points of view, our urgent common concerns – issues such as global public health, fighting terrorism and sustainable development. In that group, in this week’s discussions, and in all our communities, we must find ways to work together and advance an agenda centred on our common humanity.

Conclusion

We firmly believe that truly progressive government is about forging new approaches to equality of opportunity and securing them for the years to come, both at home and around the world. For those approaches to endure, to prove truly effective and beneficial, they must be supported by governments that are committed to the public good, to fiscal responsibility and to playing an active and progressive role on the world stage.”