Mr. Speaker, I rise in my reply to the speech from the throne to first of all congratulate you for being elected as Speaker of this House. Second, I would like to congratulate the right hon. Jean Chrétien as Canada's 21st Prime Minister.
My special thanks go to the people of Okanagan Centre who elected me. I consider it a real honour to be able to represent them. I will do the best I can to honour the trust they have placed in me.
The primary question facing this Parliament is how do we get the Canadian economy going again? I will address that question from three perspectives: first, by recognizing the need for innovation; second, the acceptance of research and development as an engine of economic growth; and finally, to begin the answer to the question, how can we get that job done?
This Parliament can be Canada's defining moment of the 20th century. As members of this Parliament, we have the opportunity to raise Canada's social and economic aspirations to higher levels of individual social responsibility and accountability.
To do so the government must establish an environment in which the wild government spending of the past is tamed and brought under control. If the government fails to bring its spending under control, it will also fail to motivate individual Canadians to act responsibly and be willing to be held to account.
As a society we are in danger of falling into a kind of cultural tyranny in which minds uninformed by traditions and standards are easy to shape by whoever is driven by a strong ideology. They may not be sympathetic to unity, honesty, integrity and fiscal responsibility. Those were the values that made Canada great.
To become more specific, in order for Canada to stimulate new momentum in the economy, some fundamental changes must be made in organizing our economic pursuits.
First of all, we need to understand that we have a new economy in which huge profits are no longer possible simply by making and moving things. The main producers of wealth and economic production have become information and knowledge, specifically biotechnology, artificial intelligence, the business of space and the creation of new materials, including ceramic composites and combinations of metals or plastics with fibres.
Second, we must note the accelerating development of knowledge and its application in various sectors of the economy. We need to realize that Canada's electronic industry is bigger than its pulp and paper industry, that the computer services industry employs more people than the auto industry and that more people in B.C. work in communications and telecommunications than in forestry, that more Ontarians are employed in business services than in the construction industry and more people in Quebec have jobs in the health and medicare fields than in construction, textile, clothing, furniture, auto, forest and mining industries combined.
These realities demand we give high priority to the acceptance of research and development as an engine of economic growth. What is required to do so? First of all, it would require utilizing the results of systematic studies of material sources, administrative structures and organizations.
New sources and applications of capital must be found and employed. It will be necessary to adopt new ideas about the relationships between public and private organizations, between various levels of government and between private organizations and government. Second, it will require a government that establishes an entrepreneurial attitude toward politics.
Last week our leader, the hon. member for Calgary Southwest, challenged this Parliament to be a House beyond precedent. It is in that spirit that we require entrepreneurial politicians who will undertake innovations that promise substantial political profit while running the risk of potential loss. With such an orientation the major requirement of government is to do what is right, just and fair. Then government is in a position to create an environment that encourages and provides for the exercising of initiatives by private citizens to apply their individual and collective skills, creative talent and knowledge in making Canada the successful nation that it can become.
What must be done in order to achieve that job? First, we need a change in attitude. We need to establish and maintain an educational system that trains entrepreneurs. We need a government that will establish and maintain an economic, social and political climate that assists Canadians to become able and successful entrepreneurs without removing all the risks.
Our families need to develop an attitude that will encourage our children to become resourceful and self-sufficient. We must nurture an attitude that supports community leaders who understand, speak and demonstrate personal responsibilities and accountability. These are leaders who know and accept the need to balance reward with the cost of taking risks and who are willing to pursue a new approach because it promises greater success.
Second, we need to think big. We need to think in the longer term which means long enough to permit the innovations a reasonable chance for success but short enough to discourage lethargy and bureaucratic stonewalling. We need to think beyond our respective families, friends, associates, shareholders and subsidiary companies. We must think beyond our constituencies, regions and perhaps even beyond the boundaries of
Canada to ensure that as many people as possible will benefit from the new approaches.
We need to develop a new role for government. We need a government that acts as a facilitator and not a benefactor and regulator supreme. We need a government that adopts principles of development that encourage growth and the application of private efforts as opposed to pandering to the pressures of self-serving special interest groups.
We need a new role for the federal government that rejects the insidious pressures to centralize power yet provides leadership and guidance for all Canadians in their pursuit of harmony, health, happiness and financial independence.
By changing our attitudes, thinking big ideas and establishing a new role for government we are building on a solid foundation that some have called ordered liberty. By that I mean a state of peaceful harmony and a constituted authority that provides for each of us the freedom from captivity, imprisonment, slavery or oppressive control.
It is this ordered liberty that has given us excellence in art, discovery in science and has undergirded the ethic of work and the ethic of service. It has tempered freedom and internal restraint, inspired public virtue and the inner impulse to do good and has sent legions into battle against disease, oppression and bigotry. It has built hospitals and orphanages. Finally, it has given mercy a human face.
To preserve that ordered liberty Parliament must regain its sense of duty and moral, as well as legal, obligation and accept its responsibility to do what is right.
With that sense of duty intact we must sharpen our focus and perspective by looking beyond the confines of this House. We must have a vision that is bigger than balancing the budget, extends beyond social and economic safety nets, embraces new ideas and arouses creativity. It is a vision that not only brings about reparation but also progression.
It is such a vision that will establish hope and instil a renewed sense of confidence in Canadians who will carry this country forward to a prosperous and new economy.