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."
- 30 -
For information:
André Lamarre
Special Advisor
Tel: (613) 943-1838
Fax: (613) 943-5553