Our policy choices are reduced to growth in GDP, our so-called standard of living, regardless of the benefits that are delivered for the well-being of average Canadians. Social needs and government responses are vilified as complex, costly, and muddled jurisdictionally.
We can't afford to take our social cohesion for granted. The increasing contrast between our lived reality and the country that most Canadians presume they live in means there's a short distance between where we are today and further alienation. There's a tremendous opportunity today to forge a new consensus for Canada.
Canadians are fundamentally generous and optimistic people. We still have time to exercise our enlightened approaches to major challenges, from an aging population to a shrinking labour force, to competitiveness and poverty, in ways that can galvanize most Canadians to become engaged in our next nation-building process as a country.
There is no magic in addressing inequality, but it does take leadership.
Thank you.