Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne

Mr. Speaker, this week we begin the last Parliament of this century and the first of the new millennium. I congratulate you on your election and express to you my high regard for your office. You bring decorum and dignity to this House and represent its great traditions and the historic responsibilities of your office. Among those responsibilities which you discharge so well, is turning off the microphones when they are meant to be off. I can assure you that both my party and I will support you fully in this task and the other important functions of your office.

I also want to congratulate the Honourable Member from Parkdale-High Park for her eloquent speech as mover of the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne, and the Honourable Member from Beauce for his speech as seconder. Both members have great futures ahead of them in this House.

Since I last spoke in the House, we have had a general election. This is the 11th time I have been elected to Parliament. The voters of Saint-Maurice have supported me for the tenth time and their confidence in me inspires me in my public life. They have taught me that politics is about people. What I've learned on the sidewalks of Shawinigan, at the kitchen tables of rural farmhouses, and with workers on factory floors enriches all I do here as a member of Parliament and Prime Minister. The people of Saint-Maurice want a government that listens to them and respects them, and that is the kind of government I want to lead.

Parliament opens appropriately as another glorious Canadian summer comes to its end. Our farmers reap their harvest, and the young return to school. This fall, Canadians, and especially young Canadians, begin to reap the rewards of what we have done together in the past four years. When I stood before you in January 1994, many forecasted bleak economic harvests in our future. In the reply to the Speech from the Throne, I said then that everything that we would do would be "aimed at rebuilding our economic vitality to ensure that every Canadian is able to realize his or her potential."

We needed no polls to tell us that most Canadians doubted that we could ever gain control of the massive deficits that had deeply wounded the economy and Canadian self-confidence.

Who then would have believed that Canada would create 974,000 jobs between October 1993 and September 1997? Who then would have predicted that our interest rates would fall far below those of the United States? Who then would have believed that we would have inflation lower than 2%, growth close to 4%, and the highest rate of job creation in the G-7? Who then would have believed that four years later all the international forecasters would be predicting that Canada will enter the next millennium with the best economic performance of the G-7 countries? Who then would have believed that I would be joining Canada's Premiers, in a spirit of cooperation in the fall of 1997, to discuss how we can help our youth, how we can improve our health system, and how we can strengthen our social programmes in an era of balanced budgets?

By working together, by being bold, by conquering fear and despair, Canadians have done much for themselves and for others.

Now is the time for Canadians to realize their vast potential. To turn toward the new century. To invest wisely and strategically in people and ideas. To build a secure foundation for Canada's future. We have made our priorities clear in the election campaign and the Speech from the Throne.

We will invest in children, our most precious resource. We will invest in knowledge to prepare Canada's youth for the technologies and knowledge-based society of the future. We will work closely with the provinces to strengthen our health system, following the excellent suggestions of the National Forum on Health. By strengthening and modernizing Medicare to meet new needs, our health care system in the 21st century will yield even greater returns.

At the beginning of the election campaign, we said that we would spend some of our fiscal dividend on health care. We will be introducing legislation to increase health care transfers to the provinces, in accordance with the recommendation of the National Forum on Health that the cash floor be $12.5 billion. This means that in 1998-99, provinces will receive $700 million more than currently budgeted; in 1999-2000, they will receive $1.4 billion more than currently budgeted; in 2000-2001, another $1.4 billion more than currently budgeted; in 2001-2002, $1.3 billion more than currently budgeted.

In other words, over the next four fiscal years, provinces will receive $4.8 billion more to meet the health care needs of their citizens than was budgeted for in the February 1997 Budget.

Canada will remain the best country to live in because it cares about its people.

We will work very hard to continue to strengthen the economy, to continue to create a climate for more jobs and for sustained economic growth.

I want to pay tribute today to the Minister of Finance for his remarkable achievements in managing the finances of the nation. And I want to tell this House that we will never, never again allow the finances of this country to get out of control. We have already begun reducing the debt as a proportion of the size of the economy. Mr. Speaker, by 1998-99, the government will balance the budget for the first time in almost three decades. Working together with members of Parliament, with the provinces, and, above all, with Canadians, we have removed the burden on our future that the deficit represented. No longer will we pass on present problems to future generations of Canadians; no longer will we have the large deficits that prevent government from meeting real human needs; no longer can anyone ever be able to call Canada a bankrupt nation worth leaving.

Mr. Speaker, Canada is working so well that leaders throughout the world are speaking about the Canadian miracle and the Canadian model. There is a new optimism in Canada. Canadians have begun to dream again and this Parliament's challenge is to live up to the spirit of these dreams. Now we must move forward together into a new millennium.

Many of you in this House today are having your first taste of Parliament. From my long experience I can tell you that the taste will be enormously satisfying - spicy at times - but in the end satisfying. Some denigrate what Parliament can do, but I can tell you that they are wrong. I've seen over the years how individual MP's - on all sides of the House - can advance causes they believe important to them, their constituents, and Canadians. Over the last four years, our government has opened this process more than ever before for private member's bills, for serious work by parliamentary committees, and for open participation in parliamentary debates. And we will continue. But I can tell you that the situation today is much better than when I became a MP. But even then, as a private member, I was able to pass an important private member's bill changing the name of Trans Canada Airlines. I worked with colleagues on both sides of the House to make that change, and my success was shared with them. When I first got on a plane marked Air Canada, I knew that Jean Chrétien, ordinary MP, had made a difference. Many of you will, too, as individuals and as part of a great Parliament.

Let me tell you what we can do together as Canadians and parliamentarians. When I first entered Parliament, Canada faced a major crisis of poverty among seniors. Despite general prosperity, many seniors found themselves victims of inflation and of the fact they had not been able to save much during the hard years of depression and war.

The challenge was great, and the responsibility for dealing with it was shared. The federal government had an old age pension scheme, but, of course, the provinces had principal responsibilities in health, welfare and housing. But, the government of Canada worked with the provinces and through Parliament used the flexibility and creativity of our federal system to confront senior's poverty. We proved then that we share more than we admit; we differ less than we profess. Saskatchewan led in Medicare; Quebec worked effectively on pensions; and Ontario and New Brunswick were innovative in housing. But it was the Government of Canada that gave national leadership to assure that the creativity of our individual provinces was shared by all Canadians.

Today the rate of seniors' poverty in Canada is less than one-third of what it was only a generation ago. When the UN names Canada the best country in the world to live in, it is partly because our seniors now live much longer lives, and live them more abundantly. And in this mandate my government will assure seniors' security for the future. We will introduce legislation this fall to sustain the Canada Pension Plan and the Senior's Benefit making Canada the first G-7 country to make its public pension system affordable and sustainable for the new millennium.

As we responded to the challenge of seniors' health and poverty a generation ago, we must now face the challenge of a new generation of Canadians. They are the generation which will inherit Canada in the new millennium. They are our children and our grandchildren. They will judge our generation by how well we have prepared theirs for the 21st century.

Election campaigns are exciting for me - as for all of us - because we get a chance to meet Canadians of every kind. My wife tells me that my excitement is greatest when I'm around young people. The hopes and the dreams of the young are an inspiration for me, but in recent campaigns I have heard too many fears mixed with their dreams. Let me say frankly, Mr. Speaker, that we have lots of work to do. With the fiscal crisis at an end, our government has more ability to act. As the Finance Minister said in his last budget, "... a government relieved of the deficit burden is not a government relieved of its obligations. It is a government able to exercise its obligations." We owe our greatest obligation to our young, the future of Canada. As I think of the hopeful yet troubled eyes of the young people I met this summer, I become even more determined that our government will not evade its own responsibilities and opportunities.

I know - as all of us do - that poverty is an enemy of a good start whether in Aboriginal communities or in the urban centres of Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. Parental love, family support and strong communities are antidotes to poverty's sting but they are not enough. People also need our help. By investing now in the well-being of today's children, we are improving the long-term social and economic health of our society.

Together, federal and provincial governments must respond through the National Child Benefit System we are now building. During the course of this Parliament, we pledge to do more to meet the needs of low-income families with children. We will do so by increasing the Child Tax Benefit, and we will work in cooperation with the provinces as they invest in services for children. Children must remain at the top of our national agenda, and we must make certain that, wherever they live and whatever their background, they have a head start on a good future.

A head start helps but it is not a guarantee you will win the race or even finish it. We have the best educated young Canadians in our history. But too many drop out and too many don't find work. Mr. Speaker, youth unemployment is simply too high. The private sector has created almost a million new jobs over the past four years. But, as a society, we need to do more to create jobs for young people. We will discuss this and more at the First Ministers Meeting this fall.

We will step up our efforts at offering first jobs through internships and summer placements. We will challenge the private sector to train young Canadians to take leadership roles in the new knowledge-based society of the future. We will develop, with the provinces, a mentorship programme, and we will partner with provinces and communities to give youth at risk a better chance at acquiring the skills and experiences they need. The more education young people have, the better are their chances to find a job. We will challenge parents, communities, schools, and provincial governments to encourage young people to stay in school.

In my family, every spare penny my parents could save went to education. For my parents the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, and education was the way their children could get into that greener field. Even though I was a bit of a troublemaker at school, my parents never lost that dream for me or my better-behaved brothers and sisters. Their faith and devotion to our education put the spring in our leap that carried us over to the other side of the fence.

Today, together, parents, communities and governments must assure that the barriers are not so high that young Canadians don't make it to the other side of the fence.

The struggle against the deficit was not undertaken so that we could celebrate our accounting accomplishments. We fought to lessen the debt burden hanging over an entire generation; we fought so that we could reduce payments to bankers and begin to invest in the future of our young people. That is what we are going to do.

We on this side of the House, do not believe that the role of government should be that of the 19th century - a laissez-faire state waiting to deal with emergencies. Rather, Mr. Speaker, we believe government in the 21st century must be an efficient, effective partner that makes wise and strategic investments in areas that really count for the future prosperity of our country. One of the most important of these areas is knowledge and learning. It is the key to growth and jobs in the years ahead. That is why, in the last budget, we announced the creation of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. With a dividend from our successful fiscal management, we made a one-time investment of $800 million, designed to rebuild the research infrastructure of our universities and teaching hospitals.

While I don't want to scoop the Fiscal Update of the Minister of Finance, which will be delivered in mid-October, it is no secret that, because of the good work of the Minister of Finance, we are doing a great deal better in 1997-98 than had originally been projected. I expect therefore, in the weeks after the Minister of Finance tables his fiscal update, to be able to take advantage of another dividend from our successful fiscal management, and announce details of another one-time investment in learning and knowledge similar to what we did last year when we created the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, but on a bigger scale. This time, the purpose of the investment in our future will be to reduce barriers to access to post-secondary education.

There can be no greater millennium project for Canada and no better role for government than to help young Canadians prepare for the knowledge-based society of the next century. As our most significant millennium project, we will establish, at arms-length from government, a Canada Millennium Scholarship Endowment Fund.

The income from the fund will reward academic excellence and will provide thousands of scholarships each year, beginning in the year 2000, for low and moderate-income Canadians to help them attend universities and colleges. We will be working closely with appropriate partners to help in the actual design of the Fund.

This will not be a millennium monument made of bricks and mortar, but when future Canadians look around they will see its legacy everywhere. I hope it can do in the 21st century for our economy and our country what the investment after World War II in post-secondary education for our returning soldiers did for our economy and our country in the last half of the 20th century. On a very personal level, I hope it will be able to do, in a different era, for many, many thousands of young Canadians what my parents were able to do for me and my brothers and sisters.

In addition to this one-time endowment, the government will make further changes to the Canada Student Loans Programme and will increase assistance for students with dependents. With these and other measures, to be developed over the next few months in concert with the provinces, we will build on the progress made in the last budget to address the increasing cost of post-secondary education and the resulting debt burden on students.

When I was young, pursuing my education meant that I had to leave home for boarding school. Small communities lacked the resources to support institutions of higher education. What is wonderful about modern technology is the way the most remote communities can be in touch with our greatest institutions. SchoolNet, developed by our Department of Industry, allows schools to deliver the same information at the same time to Whitehorse and Weyburn, Victoria and Victoriaville. Bill Gates has said that SchoolNet is "the leading programme in the world in terms of letting kids get out and use computers". And we know that we can, and must do, even more.

As I travelled through Canada during the last four years, I saw how new technologies are strengthening rural Canada. We promised in our election programme that we would help rural Canada share new technologies and we will keep that promise. It's tremendously important to know that our great country with its millions of square kilometres will be the most connected country in the world by the millennium. Distances will matter much less; and we will see that differences need not divide. The promise of technology is astonishing but technology must have a soul.

I was very troubled to read a survey this summer that suggested that young Canadians knew too little about each other and what we have done together. According to the survey, in every province except Quebec, more Canadians thought Neil Armstrong was the first Canadian in space rather than Marc Garneau. Only 28% of Quebec youth could name John A. Macdonald as our first prime minister, although 78% of them could name Wilfrid Laurier as the first Francophone prime minister. Too often we forget, or do not know, what we have achieved together. It is unacceptable that our youth may know all about computers but so little about their country.

At one level, this is why our future youth programmes will emphasize exchanges. I never knew Canada until I sat at kitchen tables in Saskatchewan, skied in the Rockies, walked on the tundra in the Arctic, played pool on Fogo Island in Newfoundland, or talked with Aboriginal elders around fires. Canada touched my heart and affected my thoughts as I discovered the grandeur of its history. It moved me deeply to learn that over 150 years ago, when religion and race caused wars everywhere else in the world, in Canada, Robert Baldwin resigned his seat in the Parliament of the United Canadas so that his colleague Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine could run in a seat in the heart of English Canada. LaFontaine became the Francophone Catholic member for a thoroughly English and Protestant riding. Working together, Baldwin and LaFontaine brought us responsible government. How many young Canadians know that just over a century ago, as religious quarrels engulfed the world, Canada, a country with a large Protestant and British majority, elected its first Francophone Catholic prime minister? And it had the good sense to re-elect Laurier for three more terms, a reasonable goal for all prime ministers it seems to me.

We must find ways for young Canadians to learn what they share, to know what we have done, and to gain pride in their nation's accomplishments. The Government of Canada will work with our great museums, other federal and provincial institutions and with voluntary groups to develop ways to increase Canadians' knowledge of what we have done together.

We Canadians have built together an astonishing country, respected and even envied throughout the world. This fall, more than one hundred nations will come to Ottawa to sign a treaty banning forever the use of anti-personnel landmines. I am proud that my government, through the Foreign Minister, refused to accept a second-best treaty. The Foreign Minister deserves our congratulations. We worked with others of like mind and showed doubters that Canada can make a real difference in the world. At one of the international meetings I recently attended, a world leader told me that only Canada could have been the leader in the campaign against landmines. I most strongly agree with the recent comment of the Opposition member for Esquimault Saanich, a medical doctor who has seen landmines tear apart human bodies and who has worked with us to achieve the ban. He told a reporter that the landmine treaty marks "the onset of a new era in Canadian foreign policy, using our moral force for humanitarian purposes. This treaty will save tens of thousands of lives."

That moral force comes from what we are, what we have done together, and what values we share in common. Canadians expressed that spirit nationally during the Saguenay and Manitoba floods. As we stood at the dikes or watched the raging waters, we shared the experience as Canadians. Our government feels the burden of that moral force in all that we do.

That is why we will take a very broad and encompassing approach to promoting and strengthening our unity. When we seek to realize the highest aspirations of Canadians, we help make Canada more united.

I welcome the Calgary initiative of the Premiers and Territorial Leaders. It is a positive and constructive statement and affirmation of important values about what Canada is, and what makes us Canadian.

It contains a key message. The French fact is a fundamental part of our Canadian identity, and as such the unique character of Quebec society with its French-speaking majority, its culture and civil law tradition, is fundamental to the well-being of Canada. The French fact is an essential part of my identity, one that has nurtured me, one that has given me strength and identity, one that has made me the Canadian I am.

I welcome the commitment of the Premiers and Territorial Leaders to involve the people in their provinces and territories in strengthening the unity of this country by joining in giving voice to these values.

The message to Quebecers, to all French-speaking Canadians, indeed to all Canadians, is one of openness and solidarity. It is a message that should be heard. I welcome the very constructive approach that the leaders of the Reform Party, the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party are taking on this issue.

I urge Quebecers to hear the message coming from Calgary and to join in building on it. The words from Calgary should be taken for what they are, an inclusive and timely message for all to hear. It is an important step in building understanding and confidence. Since it is not a constitutional or legal text, I would urge Canadians not to be drawn into a legalistic analysis of a statement of values. The day may come - and I hope it will - when there is a legal or constitutional text to consider as such. The words from Calgary are an attempt to express worthy Canadian values and that is how they should be welcomed.

I pledge to all Canadians that we are open to all good ideas to strengthen the unity of our country. We invite the ideas of parties opposite us in the House. But we will never be hostage to demands that diminish or deny to each and every Canadian the benefits of our nationhood and citizenship. We will continue to be frank and open about the consequences of what those who seek to partition Canada are proposing. Clarity does not cause fear; it is the enemy of fear. Our adversary is confusion. I am convinced that when things are clear, Quebecers and other Canadians will choose to stay together because it is the best choice for them and their children. As I have emphasized today, we are committed to collaboration and partnership with all those who, in good faith, will work with us to realize the wonderful opportunities that await Canada and Canadians.

Our strengths, our character, our recent successes have positioned us to pursue those opportunities in new ways to meet new challenges of a new century.

We began this century as a small nation without a flag, without our own Canadian citizenship, even without Newfoundland. Alberta and Saskatchewan were not yet provinces. The slums of Montreal had a higher rate of infant mortality than do the modern slums of Calcutta where Mother Teresa toiled. Few Canadians even met others more than fifty miles away. On the Prairies, new settlers huddled in isolation through cold winters unaware of the petroleum riches beneath them. And yet, we knew we had a future.

At the beginning of the century, Laurier dreamed of that future when he said:

"Three years ago when in England, I visited one of those models of Gothic architecture, which that hand of genius guided by an unerring faith, had moulded into a harmonious whole. The cathedral was made of granite, oak and marble. It is the image of the nation I wish to become. For here, I want the granite to remain granite, the oak to remain oak, the marble to remain marble. Out of these elements I would build a nation great among the nations of the world."

We have built that nation and we continue to shape its elements. Our young will do so in the next century. Their architecture will be new but it will be Canadian. Greatness may have a different meaning but it will be Canadian. Today, there is in Canada once again a wonderful sense of a country moving, of a country that matters, of a country that dreams again. For a long time, for too many Canadians, Canada had seemed stuck. Now, everywhere, Canadians - Canadians together - are making choices for a new millennium. I pledge to Canadians that this Parliament and this government will be worthy of their dreams and their aspirations.

With every ounce of energy we have, with the support of our colleagues and our fellow Canadians, we will keep this wonderful country, this Canada, our Canada, united, and together, we will move into the next millennium as a prosperous, modern, caring country. A model for the world.