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MINISTER DION STATES THAT ONTARIANS ARE STILL AS LOYAL TO
CANADA AND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THEIR FELLOW CITIZENS
LONDON, ONTARIO, September 21, 2001 – The Honourable Stéphane Dion,
President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, stated
today in a speech at the University of Western Ontario that loyalty to Canada
and solidarity with all Canadians are not disappearing in Ontario.
The Minister refuted a line of thought currently in vogue claiming that
relations between Queen’s Park and Ottawa are worse than ever, that this
deterioration is the product of a structural change in the Ontarian economy,
which is increasingly north-south oriented rather than east-west, and that
Ontario will increasingly detach itself from Canada and set off to seek its own destiny.
"To be sure, relations between Queen’s Park and Ottawa have at
times been easier in the past than they are today. But sometimes they have also
been just as complicated, if not more so," Mr. Dion first noted. "It’s
not just as of late that the Government of Ontario has been calling on the
federal government for more powers, more money, in the name of provincial rights
and interprovincial equity." The Minister pointed out the difficulties
that had arisen between the governments of Macdonald and Mowat, Hepburn and
King, Frost and Saint-Laurent or Robarts and Pearson.
As to the current disagreements between the Harris and Chrétien governments,
Mr. Dion does not see them as the reflection of a structural change in
Ontario’s economy, but rather "of the frictions to be expected between
a Liberal government in the political centre and a Conservative government
undoubtedly farther to the right than average."
Second, the Minister remarked, even though it is true that Ontario’s
economy has changed a great deal in the past 20 years, "that in no way
disengages it from Canada." "While we are witnessing a
spectacular increase in the importance of external trade in the Ontarian
economy, the latter remains profoundly Canadian," he added. To break
into these external markets, the "Canada" label is an excellent sales
tool and Ontarian companies and their provincial government are not depriving
themselves of it; on the contrary, they make abundant use of Canada’s
diplomatic resources and sterling reputation, Mr. Dion explained.
As for interprovincial trade, it remains very important for Ontario, the
Minister demonstrated with substantiating data. He added we must see Ontario’s
economic links with the rest of Canada in its larger economic role. "Ontario
is the centre of our financial services industry, which remains strongly
trans-Canadian. It is English Canada’s media and cultural capital. It is by
far the largest home province of headquarters for Canadian companies."
Third, the polls confirm it: it is in Ontario that the feeling of belonging
to Canada is expressed most strongly and that there is the greatest tendency for
people to define themselves as citizens of Canada rather than citizens of their
province, Mr. Dion stated. It is also there that support for a common currency
for Canada and the US is the lowest, and, after Alberta, it is in Ontario that
the prospect of annexation to the United States generates the greatest
opposition.
Ontarians’ loyalty to Canada and their solidarity with their fellow
citizens transcend the evolution of trade and the climate of federal-provincial
relations, he pointed out. "They are based on the solid moral values of
caring and generosity and on the conviction that the quality of life we have
acquired, which is the envy of the whole world, depends on our unwavering desire
to keep improving it, throughout the country."
Loyalty to the country, solidarity among citizens, cooperation between
governments based on mutual respect, all of these ingredients do not guard us
against federal-provincial tensions, the Minister concluded. "But they
are the recipe that has won us one of the best qualities of life in the world."
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For information:
André Lamarre
Special Advisor
Tel: (613) 943-1838
Fax: (613) 943-5553
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