|
"Towards a Better Canada"
Notes for an address at Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
January 30, 1997
Canada is not an ordinary country facing ordinary circumstances. Canada is a
great federation that is in danger of collapse. We cannot afford to be
ostriches, burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the events that have
unfolded, and are still unfolding, in Quebec. That is why I am going to speak to
you frankly and openly about the state of our federation and the need for
national reconciliation. Canadians have built a great and fair country -- and
together we can have an even brighter future.
For an academic who is now in politics, it is a pleasure to be here at one of
Canada's most prestigious law schools. Your school has produced many great
political figures over the years: from Prime Minister R. B. Bennett to premiers
such as Allan Blakeney, and the late Angus L. Macdonald, Richard Hatfield and
Joe Ghiz. This institution has also educated over half the members of Nova
Scotia's federal Liberal Caucus, including Health Minister David Dingwall,
Halifax MP Mary Clancy and Halifax West MP Geoff Regan. Graduates from Dal Law
are also valuable players on my national unity team at the Privy Council Office.
And I have not been in partisan politics long enough to forget former
Conservative Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark, who also studied
here.
As some of you will know, I originally intended to speak to you last
September, but in the end had to cancel, because our government was announcing
the decision to refer certain key questions concerning the legality of a
unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) to the Supreme Court.
I entered politics to fight against secession, and your province knows a
thing or two about secessionists. But even though, as you know, Joseph Howe
brought a petition about Nova Scotia's wish to secede from Confederation to
London in 1868, the British Parliament refused to accept it since it did not
come from the Canadian Parliament, and, fortunately, your province has stayed in
Canada and become a proud and active participant in our federation. As for Mr.
Howe, he had a change of heart and became one of my predecessors as President of
the Privy Council. Perhaps Mr. Bouchard should take note.
Although I hope to infuse my speech today with the flavours of Nova Scotia, I
will be touching upon ideas I have expressed from coast to coast -- whether in
Lethbridge on October 18, in Quebec City on October 19, or in Toronto on January
27. Canada is a vast and very diverse country, yet as Canadians we face some
common challenges.
Of course we have problems; it would be foolish to pretend that we don't.
There is too much unemployment, and too much poverty, especially among our
children. But in spite of the challenges we face, the Canadian federation works
well and we can be proud of it. We stack up pretty well against other
industrialized countries. We don't need data from the United Nations to know how
fortunate we are to have our quality of life, and that it would be difficult to
find a country that could match it. When friends from other countries visit us
they are always impressed by the peaceful lives we lead, the care we take to
preserve our immense and beautiful natural spaces, our openness and respect for
diversity and the dynamism of our cities. We have a great federation -- but
there's always room for improvement. Today, I want to talk about the
challenge of maintaining the unity of our country. To do so, we must improve our
federation and overcome the unfortunate misunderstanding that exists about the
recognition of Quebec's place in Canada.
MAINTAINING AND IMPROVING SERVICES TO CANADIANS
Too often, our federal-provincial debates focus on symbolic abstractions,
rather than on the daily realities faced by Canadians from Victoria to Cape
Spear. But what the debate is really all about is envisioning the best way to
provide services to living, breathing citizens. And making Canadians --
including Quebecers -- aware of how our federation is evolving to be more
responsive to the needs and aspirations of its citizens is an important step in
promoting national unity.
We must see our federation as much more than a power struggle between
different governments. I am sure you have read, as I have, many articles that
wax eloquent about the division of federal and provincial responsibilities only
in terms of who gets what, without ever devoting one paragraph, one sentence,
one line to the aspect of service to the public. And yet, it is Canadians'
health, safety and welfare that are at stake.
What we need are strong provinces, a strong federal government and a strong
relationship between them. In deciding our future, we do not have to choose
between creating ten self-centred republics or an omnipotent federal government.
Rather, we must build our future together on the solid foundation provided by a
healthy and united federation.
We need a balance between solidarity, our commitment to mutual assistance,
and subsidiarity, keeping government close to the people. Let's look at the case
of Nova Scotia. Like my province, Quebec, Nova Scotia is presently a
"have-not" province. Nova Scotia and Quebec are rightly able to
benefit from the sharing of wealth that has been part of the Canadian tradition
for decades. In the 1930s, for example, Alberta benefitted from transfers from
other provinces. Now, Alberta's enviable economic situation allows it to help
those provinces which are presently less well-off, such as yours and mine. That
is how the Canadian family works -- we help each other out. That is our spirit
of solidarity.
Yet, at the same time, the Canadian federation allows Nova Scotia and the
other provinces to maintain their own perspectives and approach the challenges
they face in their own way. A few years back, each of Canada's ten provinces had
budget deficits; now, each of them has found its own way to resolve that
situation, and seven have balanced their budgets or are showing a surplus. The
achievements of Premier Savage's Liberal government in this regard mean that
fiscal year 1996-97 will be the first time in a quarter century that your
province will have a totally balanced budget. The methods used in Nova Scotia
were not those chosen by Alberta, which has in turn followed a very different
route from that on which Quebec is embarking. All provinces are able to
capitalize on their own strengths, and they can also turn these strengths toward
the common good. Canada helps the provinces strike a balance between innovation
through autonomy and mutual assistance through solidarity.
This balance between subsidiarity and solidarity should inform our approach
to providing services to the public, so that we do so in a way that ensures
equality while respecting diversity. Let's consider the following example. The
federal government makes equalization payments to some provinces and not to
others. This does not make the provinces unequal: instead, it ensures that all
citizens receive comparable services no matter where they live in Canada. While
all citizens are equal, governments must respond to their diversity of needs and
circumstances.
Equality of treatment must not be confused with uniformity of treatment. When
this happens, public service tumbles into mediocrity. The Greek mythical figure
Procrustes forced his victims to lie on one of two beds -- a long one, which he
stretched them to fit, or a short one, which he made them fit into by sawing off
their legs. We wouldn't want Procrustes designing our hospital beds! And yet
that is exactly what we are asking for when we insist equality should mean
uniformity.
That confusion often arises when people discuss recognizing Quebec's
linguistic and cultural difference as a fundamental characteristic of Canada.
Some people are afraid that if the provinces are not seen as uniform -- if they
don't all conform to the same Procrustean bed -- then they will no longer be
equal. But recognizing Quebec's uniqueness would not undermine the equality of
provinces or of citizens.
In fact, it would be in line with the principle we have applied in other
areas, such as labour market training. We are introducing a new partnership in
this sector which will see the federal government continuing to deliver
Employment Insurance benefits and maintain various national aspects of the
system, but the provinces being given the opportunity to manage approximately $2
billion worth of active employment assistance measures. This will mean that
Canadians, wherever they live, will continue to receive comparable services, but
tailored by their provincial governments to respond to regional needs. Basic
equality of service, but not uniformity of service.
To ensure the best possible services for Canadians, we also need the
provinces to work with one another. In this respect, the Atlantic provinces
provide some useful examples. The Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation is
working to establish a common core curriculum in both official languages, as
well as common assessment strategies, including Education Indicators for
Atlantic Canada, the first regional indicators report in Canada. Meanwhile, the
Atlantic Canada On-Line project, begun in 1996, will make government data more
accessible, facilitating citizens' interactions with their governments. These
initiatives show how public policy cooperation and coordination can lead to
improved services for Canadians.
To improve our services to the public, then, we don't have to criticize
Canada's basic foundations, we have to build on its strengths. One of those
strengths is our social programs, and it is these I would like to discuss in
more detail.
No single province could have developed all the dimensions of Canada's health
and social system within its own borders, with its own resources. Yet together
we have been able to build a web of programs which contribute greatly to a
quality of life that is almost unequalled in the world.
In a speech last October, Premier Savage talked about how Canadians believe
that "we must maintain social bonds, like medicare, which Canadians
recognize as national family traits -- as entitlements of citizenship and
unifying features of our country." Prime Minister Chrétien, Health
Minister David Dingwall and the Liberal government in Ottawa are committed to
upholding these social bonds and the five principles of medicare: universality,
accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability and public administration. These
principles reflect our national solidarity, and are important for ensuring
comparable and equitable services for each and every Canadian throughout the
country.
For those who carp about the costs, I would point out that an efficient
health and social system is also a sound economic investment. A private,
American-style health system would place tremendous costs on businesses, making
them less competitive. In fact, U.S. car makers spend more on health insurance
than they do on steel. Our health system sharpens our competitive edge, and
partly explains why Canada, which represents 6.8 per cent of the North American
automobile market, accounts for 15.8 per cent of automobile production.
Incidentally, federal intervention in the health sector entails minimal
administrative costs, contrary to what is too often suggested. There is a myth
that Health Canada employs 8,000 people whose only task is to monitor the
provinces and duplicate their activities. In fact, in fiscal year 1996-97 Health
Canada has only 6,400 employees in all. So, how many of them do you think are
responsible for enforcing the backbone of our medicare system, the Canada Health
Act?
- Do I hear 6,000? 3,000? 1,000? 500? 100? Not even close! The actual figure,
ladies and gentlemen, is 23!
The rest of Health Canada's employees deal with responsibilities that
logically fall under federal jurisdiction, such as Aboriginal health services,
drug regulation, and prevention of epidemics. After all, it would make no sense
to require drug companies to have the results of their clinical trials approved
by 10 governments!
We are committed to striking the right balance between solidarity and
subsidiarity. To this end, we fully support examining more consensus-driven,
effective mechanisms with the provinces, to modernize our social union and
ensure equitable access for all Canadians wherever they live to the services to
which they are entitled. A joint federal-provincial committee has been struck to
that effect, co-chaired by Minister Pierre Pettigrew and Alberta's Stockwell
Day. Its priorities include finding new joint approaches to the scourge of child
poverty and to addressing the issues of disabled Canadians.
With regard to the latter, a task force headed by Andy Scott, MP for
Fredericton-York-Sunbury, has produced the important report "Equal
Citizenship for Canadians with Disabilities: The will to act." As the
report suggests, it can "be used as a compass so that governments and the
community set the course and move in the right direction" to ensure that
Canadians with disabilities can enjoy full and equal participation in the life
of our country.
By working together, with mutual respect and a commitment to Canadians, the
federal and provincial governments can make sure our health and social system is
sustainable for the future. We can keep a flexible and dynamic social union to
position us well for the next millennium.
QUEBEC & CANADA
You know, if all Canadians focused on the benefits of the services we enjoy
because of this federation, I am sure that nobody would be discussing breaking
it up. However, at present, maintaining national unity is a challenge we must
face.
I want my fellow Quebecers who are thinking about voting YES in any future
referendum to be aware of the weight upon their shoulders. They must realize
that voting YES will mean renouncing Canada. Voting YES will mean seeking to
impose their choice on their fellow Quebecers and on all Canadians. And voting
YES will mean seeking to impose their choice on their children and their
grandchildren. I want all these things to be clear.
Unfortunately, in the event of another referendum, the Quebec government
would undoubtedly be motivated once again not by the need for clarity, but by
the need for a winning question. But the Quebec government must remember that
they owe it to Quebecers and to other Canadians to ensure that there is no
confusion about the question or about the implications of secession.
If we are prepared to say that we can't keep Quebecers against their will, we
should surely also have a right to ensure clarity when the votes are cast. If it
is fair to say that Nova Scotians can't keep Quebecers in Confederation against
their will, clearly and democratically expressed, it is also fair to say Nova
Scotians, like other Canadians, have the right to be certain that the process is
clear, mutually acceptable and fair to all. After all, the secession of Quebec
would have grave consequences for Nova Scotians and citizens of the other
Atlantic provinces, since it would cut you off from the rest of the federation.
For all these reasons, our government took the decision to refer certain key
questions concerning secession to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The secessionist leadership talks about a unilateral declaration of
independence -- or UDI -- as if it were a perfectly normal step to take. But in
point of fact, a UDI as envisaged by Premier Bouchard would not be acceptable in
any democracy in the world. Indeed, there are many countries where secession of
any type isn't an option under the Constitution. This is the case in France, in
Norway, in South Africa and in Spain, for example. We in Canada are, in fact,
unusually democratic in considering the possibility that our country could be
divided.
But we can avoid secession, and the heartache it would bring, by working
towards national reconciliation. It is part of my job to show Quebecers the
advantages of staying in the Canadian family, but I would like the people here
today in the audience, the people of Dalhousie University and of Nova Scotia, to
show them too.
Each of you here today can make this country stronger and more united. One of
your fellow students, Graham Murray, has put his efforts into the "Unity
Link" website on the Internet. This site is fostering an increased
understanding of the true benefits of Canada. Thank you Graham, on behalf of all
Canadians.
I found browsing Unity Link stimulating. It is by no means a cheerleader for
the federal government. But I can understand why Canadians are feeling nervous.
As Unity Link points out, the only issue on which history will judge us is
whether Canada continues to exist -- in fifty years' time, current federal
fiscal policy will largely be forgotten. And make no mistake, history will judge
us all. That is why national unity is not just an issue for governments.
Governments alone cannot solve it -- the strong and spontaneous involvement of
Canadians is also necessary.
I am a frank person, and I appreciate the frank contributions of others to
the unity debate. You know, it is not popular to say in Quebec that there must
be clarity about secession, and that secession cannot take place in confusion.
But I will continue to make this point because I did not enter politics to win
short-term popularity. And outside Quebec, it is not always popular to stress
the need for recognizing Quebec as a distinct society. But I will continue to
push for recognition of Quebec's distinctiveness, because it would be a great
thing for Canadian unity, and a great Canadian thing to do.
To explain why Quebecers want this recognition, I'd like to invite you to
perform an exercise of the imagination. Imagine that Nova Scotia is the only
majority English-speaking province in a continent of 300 million Francophones.
That French is globally the predominant language for business, media and the
Internet. Imagine that most Canadian members of Parliament and bureaucrats do
not speak your language. Now you are beginning to understand how many
Francophone Quebecers feel. Wouldn't you, in this situation, want some
recognition that you had the warm support of other Canadians for preserving your
language and heritage?
Canadians know that equality does not require uniformity. Furthermore,
recognizing Quebec's distinctiveness would not mean giving the Quebec government
extra powers or cash. The positive role that Atlantic premiers have played as
spokespersons for recognizing Quebec's uniqueness has impressed me deeply.
I am speaking to you as a Quebecer and a Canadian who is very attached to
both his identities. The vast majority of Quebecers feel as I do -- they are
proud of both identities. What we, as a government, must do, is to show
Quebecers that they do not have to choose between the two identities they
cherish. We must show them to what extent the Quebec identity and the Canadian
identity complement each other. And we'd like your support in doing this.
CONCLUSION
As I said in my introductory remarks, Canada is a federation that works well
and that we can be proud of. We must all work to keep our country together. And
we must do so not just for ourselves and our children, but also for the many
other people elsewhere who look to Canada as a source of hope. Many of them can
only dream of the advantages we enjoy -- and perhaps even take for granted -- as
part of the Canadian federal system. Even a cursory glance at the world today
reveals how many states and regions are riven by ethnic and religious conflicts.
Surely Canada, which has been blessed with so many advantages, should continue
to show the world a model of harmonious cohabitation.
Moreover, working together we can make Canada an even better place to live.
We can build on our social and economic successes to create a federation which
is even more responsive to the needs, hopes and dreams of its citizens. That is
the vision of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Speaking about the renewal process,
Mr. Chrétien said that "our federation should be responsive to our common
needs and diversity. It should show respect for each other and our institutions.
It should involve partnership and dialogue between our governments and
citizens."
Today I am pleased to be taking part in a dialogue with Nova Scotians, and
with the students and faculty of Dalhousie Law School. I am very interested to
hear your perspectives. Working together, we can rise to the challenge of
improving our federation and keeping the Canadian family united. Together, we
can make Canada even better.
Check against delivery.
|
