Madam Speaker, today we are debating a very weighty subject which is the origins of cynicism. I do not know if we pursued the debate to its final conclusion we would have to have a debate on the human condition, but I suppose we would have to do it with the political conditions we find before us today.
I suppose one could ask who is putting the question about cynicism and perhaps ask them a couple of questions back. I want to start with something rather specific that was said by the member for Medicine Hat. In his speech he raised a litany of things which he said would be the source of cynicism about our government. I was curious at his roll call.
One detail leapt out of his speech on which I decided to do a little research. The member informed the House that the Canadian Bankers Association in Vancouver received from the Government of Canada a grant of $105,000. This was cited as an example of waste. Of course there were no details provided so I decided I might try and help out the hon. member by finding some details myself.
It turns out that this much criticized grant which the hon. member referred to was used exclusively to train aboriginal students and persons with disabilities. They would be better prepared to enter the workforce, get off social assistance and expand their skills so they could access entry level positions within the banks.
The banks themselves provided on the spot training and all sorts of support significantly over the period of the grant to help these aboriginal people and disabled persons. There were 55 students from 1991 to 1994. Forty-seven of them graduated and 30 of them were hired by the banks.
I only raise this seemingly minor point simply to ask: If the hon. member had done the research and had found out what I found out, would he have made the point? If he had made the point knowing what he knew, would that not have contributed to the cynicism which surrounds the political process, that he might have deliberately suppressed the most crucial information about the case he cited?
There are broader reasons for political cynicism which can be laid directly at the door of the Reform Party. One might ask what the source is of cynicism about public institutions, governments, politicians and the political process.
I suspect that if one examined the very origins of the Reform Party itself, one might say it is an anti-political political party. I dare say Reformers would not disagree with that. These are politicians who say they hate politicians. Indeed, the entire Reform Party platform is based on catering to a fundamental dislike which human beings have of public institutions, governments, politicians and the political process itself. Therefore, if one likes, the Reform Party was constituted on a principle of self-loathing as a political party.
The origins of those ideas of course are to be found south of the border and across the Atlantic. The origins of those ideas come from that bundle of concepts which could be described as Ronald-Thatcherism. It is a strange view of the world which basically states that governments are not neutral actors, they are bad actors, and that for all of the major social and economic issues of our time the marketplace should decide and the individual must reign in complete freedom. Those are the major tenets of the Reform Party and they belong to a larger school of intellectual thought which we saw active in the 1980s.
There is also a certain connection, which I dare say they would deny, between that chain of ideas and the ideas of the predecessor government to our own. The previous Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney, very much subscribed to the Ronald-Thatcherite school of thinking with its libertarian ideas. He also subscribed to the notion that the model for society was the United States. He used to state so simply about Canadian foreign policy: "I know who my friends are".
I suspect that the cynicism which Canadians feel about the political process which was certainly accelerated during the Mulroney years comes from two sources, not one. The obvious source was the suggestion of favouritism and patronage. But more subtly the source was a fundamental belief by the leader of the country that the model was somewhere else, that headquarters were somewhere else and we would be very well off if we could emulate those values and that kind of society. That was a subtle undermining of the political process and a major contribution to cynicism. The Reform Party has contributed to the continuation of this cynicism.
It was interesting to observe the Winds of Change conference over the past weekend. There was such a clear distinction between what I would call true Conservatism, which I do not think Mr. Mulroney embodied, and the kind of radical rightist thinking which is characteristic of the Reform Party. I entirely sympathize with the Reform Party because of course there can be no true union between true Conservatives and radical rightists.
What do radical rightists believe? Jeffrey Simpson put it very nicely the other day in an article:
These radical rightists are essentially libertarians with little sense of community. As such, they represent the antithesis of genuine conservatism, which emphasises the organic nature of society, tradition, pragmatism, order and reciprocal obligations. A society that values cohesion and order must have a sense of obligation, of what we owe each other, but a libertarian society is founded on the idea that we owe each other nothing except the ability to protect individuals from interference in the unfettered enjoyment of their liberty and property.
This is the radical rightist or Reform world view. Of course, it represents cynicism not only about governments, politics, institutions and the like referred to in Reform's motion, but it represents-and here I echo the remarks of the member for York North-a cynicism about the human condition, about human beings. It is a meanspirited view of humankind. It is a distrust of society. It is, as I have said, a kind of political and social self-loathing.
One might ask what the alternative is to this and why would our alternative Liberalism be of a different order. There are five principles of Liberalism which help to dissipate cynicism, which give people hope and differentiate us not only from the radical rightists of the Reform Party or of Mr. Frum. They not only differentiate us in some sense from the traditional Conservatives, although we would be closer to them, but also from the New Democratic Party, whatever that is.
The first important distinction which separates us from the pack is a dedication to innovation. It is true, particularly in this century, that the Liberal Party has been innovative in economic reform and innovative in social reform. The Liberals are innovative now in recognizing that when institutions which were created for one purpose, such as unemployment insurance and the health care system, now find themselves in a different situation, we are not afraid to innovate again by going back to the fundamental principles of what it is we are trying to achieve with the social system in question, be it the health care system or social support for individuals. Innovation is at the heart of what we did in the red book and what I hope we will be able to do in the remainder of our mandate.
A second distinguishing characteristic, which is almost a psychological tone if I may say, is optimism: optimism about human beings, optimism about society, optimism about the future of the world. It is an optimism which is not to be taken for granted but to be worked on through innovation. We have to be optimistic about this country, about our families, and about business if we are to make a go of it. We cannot start from the principle that it is dreadful and getting worse. We have to be optimistic.
A third important strand, and here we connect up with some of the other ones I have referred to, is a concern for the individual's welfare, not ignoring vast numbers of humankind because they are not our kind. It is a concern for the individual.
A fourth distinction-and this one really does separate us from the others-is a view of the state which says on the one hand, unlike the NDP, we do not think the state can do it all. On the other hand, unlike the radical right, we do not think there is no role whatsoever for the state. It is a view which says sometimes it is useful and sometimes it is not.
I wish to pick up on some remarks made by the Minister for International Cooperation. More important, the state now has to be in a partnership with all elements of society. We no longer speak of nations in a sense and we no longer speak of states; we speak of societies which compete collectively as state-sharing vessels.
Sometimes I agree with the language of Mr. Bouchard when he talks the language of social solidarity. It is all of the elements coming together to compete. It is the Team Canada approach internalized which will advance the cause of this society. We cannot command and control this economy or this society, but neither can we neglect it.
We have to use our convening power to bring together all the elements of Canadian society to advance the technological agenda, to advance the social agenda because no one person, no one institution, no one situs, in sociological terms, can do the job alone. That is a distinguishing characteristic: that we view the state as having an active but not dominant role. That is the fourth condition of Liberalism.
Finally, and I think this is crucial as well, Liberals do not see themselves either as individual members or collectively as representing the interests of one group of Canadians or one social group as in contradistinction to another. It is the difference between what has happened in Ontario in recent elections where the ins under the NDP represented a certain group of people: the trade unionists, the environmentalists, very worthy people. Then suddenly there was a swing and the new ins represent the country club set and reject the views of labour and all the rest of it.
Liberals do not play that game. Liberals say they protect all those interests and attempt through society to harmonize their interests to a common purpose. That is the distinction between what we do and what the Reform Party does. That is why I think Canadians have a great deal less to be cynical about as they think about the Liberal Party than as they think about the Reform Party.