Mr. Speaker, I begin my remarks today by congratulating the hon. member for Windsor—St. Clair on the excellent speech he made in moving the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne.
I would also like to congratulate the member for Laval West, who also made an excellent presentation in seconding the address yesterday.
I was very impressed by their presentations and I am sure that they will have a fine career here in the Parliament of Canada.
On behalf of all members of the House I congratulate Her Excellency on assuming her functions as governor general. We all wish her well.
Today we are on the eve of what many predict will be the century of the Pacific. How fitting it is that the remarkable woman who now occupies the highest office in the land is an immigrant from the Pacific, Chinese born, a refugee who came here as a young child with her family, a woman who has made a major contribution to the cultural life of her adopted country.
One hundred years ago who would have predicted that a woman immigrant from China would one day become Governor General of Canada? It is with great pride that I say we have come a long, long way in this wonderful country.
We are now 75 days from the turn of a new century. As the current century draws to a close, the century Laurier predicted would be the century of Canada, it is appropriate to pause and reflect on where we have come from, what we have achieved together and why we enter the next century with such confidence, such hope and such optimism.
It has been said that Canada is a triumph of will over geography and economics, and what a triumph it has been. How easy it would have been for a small population, spread over vast spaces across the entire continent, to succumb to the forces of manifest destiny. But succumb we did not. We grew and we flourished.
How easy it would have been for a small French speaking population, concentrated on the banks of the St. Lawrence, to succumb to the forces of the English speaking North American melting pot. But succumb we did not. We grew and we flourished.
How easy it would have been for our first citizens, the aboriginal people, to succumb to the forces of assimilation. But succumb they did not, and a new relationship is growing and flourishing.
In a century of tyranny Canadians gave their lives in the far corners of the world so that others could live in freedom. Today I would like to pay tribute to the troops who are all over the world at this moment working for peace.
In a century of intolerance Canada became a beacon of freedom. In a century of brutal dictatorships Canada became an advanced pluralistic democracy. In a century of the worst excesses of nationalism Canada became a multicultural post-national society. In a century of human rights oppression Canada embraced a charter of rights and freedoms. In a century of growing gaps between the haves and have nots Canada developed an advanced system of social security and a social safety net.
In a century of great economic progress, from the small agrarian society that it was, Canada has become one of the seven great industrialized countries. In a century of entrepreneurship and innovation, Canada has been at the forefront.
In a century in which artistic creation has had unprecedented growth, Canadians hold a place of honour: from Robertson Davies and Morley Callahan to Gabrielle Roy and Antonine Maillet, from Oscar Peterson to Gordon Lightfoot and Susan Aglukark, from Céline Dion to Atom Egoyan and Denis Arcand and Margo Kane, with new talent appearing every day.
We Canadians have proven to be a very determined people. We have established a distinct Canadian way, a distinct Canadian model. Accommodation of cultures; recognition of diversity; a partnership between citizens and state.
It is a balance that promotes individual freedom and economic prosperity while, at the same time, sharing risks and benefits. The world has sat up and noticed.
President Chirac expressed it so well last month, in Moncton, when he said, and I quote “This Canada, land of first nations, Francophones, and Anglophones, which today stands as an example of linguistic and cultural diversity, as an object of value and everyday life”.
The world values what we have accomplished. It wants us to succeed. And succeed we have, and succeed we will. We will build on our strengths. We will take bold action for the future. The Canadian way will be a model, setting standards for the whole world.
We all know that there are some in Canada who will judge the success of countries solely by how much money they can make. Ironically, many of those who today judge us harshly on our economic policy have actually made a great deal of money in Canada.
That is certainly not the only criterion for judging success, nor should it be the only criterion for governing. Life is about more than just making money. There may be other countries that are better for those who are already very well off. I am not sure, but there may be. However, if I have to choose between decisions that make life better for those in the middle and for those who have less or decisions for those who already have a great deal, I know how I choose. I know how this government chooses and I know how Canadians choose. We choose the Canadian way.
We have every reason to be very proud of what we have accomplished. We have every reason to be full of hope, of confidence and optimism for the future. That does not mean that everything in Canada is as it should be for everyone. It is not. That does not mean that everything is as it can be and must be for everyone. It is not. There is no room for complacency. There is no room for self-satisfaction. There is a lot of room for rolling up our sleeves, looking forward and working harder together.
We have much work left to do, not only for this parliament but for the next parliament as well. With an appreciation for our past, boldness of vision and the courage to act, we can take what is clearly the best country in the world in which to live and make it better for everyone.
Our vision of the Canada of the 21st century is clear: a society of excellence with a commitment to success, a strong and united country, a dynamic economy, a creative and innovative population, a diverse and cohesive society where prosperity is not limited to the few, but is shared by many. It is a Canada where every child gets the right start in life, where young people have a chance to grow and be the best at whatever they want to do, where citizens have access to the skills and knowledge they need to excel. It is a Canada where citizens, regardless of income, receive quality health services, where families enjoy safe communities and a clean environment and where we work together with other countries to promote peace, cultural diversity and the human purpose and benefits of the new global economy. It is a country, Canada, that is the place to be in the 21st century, the place where people want to come and stay, to learn, to pursue opportunities, to raise children, to enjoy natural beauty, to open new frontiers and to set the standard for the world for a high quality of life. It is a Canada that is a leader and an example to the world.
Today, I want to set out a comprehensive strategy that enables Canadians and their governments, working together, to turn this vision into reality, a comprehensive strategy for leadership in the knowledge-based economy and for promoting our interests and projecting our values in the world, a strategy that integrates the economy, social policy and the environment, a strategy faithful to the Canadian way.
We cannot do everything. But that which the national government can do, we must do wisely and well. We must set ambitious, concrete objectives, and work with Canadians to achieve them. That is what leadership is really about.
That is why the government is setting out both five-year objectives and concrete steps over the next two years to achieve them.
Above all, a strong economy is the indispensable foundation for all we can do and all we want to do.
The government's economic strategy is clear and comprehensive; it is to make Canada a world leader in the next century.
When we took office six years ago, we had a plan. We have followed our plan. It is working. And we will continue to follow it.
We are now in a position to build on it by setting ambitious new goals and objectives for the next five years. We have to build a common vision of how Canada will take on the world, and win, in the 21st century.
We have to think globally.
We have to brand Canada, at home and abroad, as a dynamic and skilled knowledge-based economy. And we must do these things faster than our global competitors, because speed wins.
But to compete on an equal footing, we first had to restore the country's fiscal health.
The era of growing debt and large deficits is now behind us once and for all. The budget will be balanced in each and every year through the life of this Parliament and beyond, something that we have not seen for generations, for at least 50 years.
In each and every year, instead of adding to the national debt, we will pay it down. The debt to GDP ratio will decrease year after year, after year.
The economy is growing strongly and sustainably. Canadians are more optimistic about the economy and their individual prospects today than they have been for a long, long time.
Unemployment is lower than it has been in almost a decade and more Canadians are working today than ever before in our history. The country is on the right track. We are very well positioned to be a world leader in the new economy.
A lot of people deserve credit for the economic success of the last six years, but no one more than the Minister of Finance. I want to express to him my personal gratitude as Prime Minister, the gratitude of his colleagues in caucus and cabinet, and that of all Canadians.
With the fiscal house in order, with the strong and growing economy, we can move forward boldly to implement our economic strategy, to strengthen the economic and social fabric of Canada and to seize the opportunities of a new century.
The government, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Liberal Party have been and are committed to reducing taxes as the finance of the nation improves. We have already started and we will carry on. But lower taxes are not an end in themselves. They are an essential part of an economic strategy to provide jobs, growth, rising incomes and a higher quality of life.
We began targeted tax relief even before the budget was balanced. As soon as the books were balanced the Minister of Finance introduced broad based tax relief. The budgets of 1998 and 1999 have together cut taxes by $16.5 billion over a three year period.
This is a good beginning, but it is only a beginning. Now we will do more in a responsible and sustained way, year after year after year. With continuing improvements in the financial health of the nation we will do more to reduce taxes in the years ahead.
In the next budget the Minister of Finance will outline a multi-year tax reduction strategy to ensure that Canadian families have more income in their pockets than they had when we started as government, and that Canadian businesses are better able to compete in the global knowledge based economy.
Tax reduction is only one part of the equation. A comprehensive, balanced economic strategy requires investment, public and private, in children, knowledge, creativity, innovation, health and the environment. It also requires maintaining flexibility to meet urgent needs such as the problems in agriculture today in western Canada.
Contrary to the Reform Party, this government is helping farmers with programs. It is against that. I hope people will note that.
This government committed itself at the beginning of this mandate to using 50% of any surplus for tax and debt reduction and the other 50% for investment in economic and social needs that will increase our quality of life over the long term.
There is a growing Canadian consensus that this is the right approach, that this balanced approach is the Canadian way. In August in Quebec City we saw agreement on that from Tory premiers from the west and from Atlantic Canada. The NDP governments were there as were Mike Harris and Lucien Bouchard. In fact, Premier Harris read from the red book. He saw that as real common sense and that is why he approved of it. I do not blame him. I applaud him. He has to like it.
Our comprehensive strategy to make Canada the place to be in the 21st century means focusing on children, on knowledge, on youth, on health and on the environment.
The best place to start is with Canada's children. If we want the brightest future possible for our country, we must ensure that all our children have the best possible start in life.
Our plan for the next two to five years is comprehensive: one, increased maternity and parental leave benefits; two, a federal-provincial agreement on more supports for early childhood development; three, more after tax money in the hands of families; four, more family friendly workplaces; five, modernization of family law; six, a third significant investment in the national child benefit; and seven, strengthened learning opportunities through an expanded SchoolNet. Real support for Canadian families in the Canadian way.
Let me elaborate on three aspects of our strategy.
There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that success in a child's early years is the key to long term healthy development. Nothing is more important than for parents to be able to spend the maximum amount of time with newborn children in the critical early months of a child's life.
Therefore, I am proud to announce today that the government will introduce legislation in this parliament to extend employment insurance maternity and parental benefits from the current maximum of six months to one full year.
We will make these benefits more flexible to meet the different needs of families. We will make them more accessible by increasing the number of parents eligible for support. This will be in effect no later than January 1, 2001.
Together with the provinces, we have begun to put in place the national children's agenda to improve supports for families and children.
I believe this work has to be accelerated.
Provincial premiers think so as well and discussed this last summer. We must move as quickly as possible from talk to action.
Today I challenge all governments to have in place by December 2000 a federal-provincial agreement consistent with the social union framework to strengthen community supports for early childhood development, an agreement on principles and objectives, on measuring outcomes and reporting to Canadians, as well as an agreement on a five-year timetable for increased federal and provincial funding to achieve our shared objectives.
We have demonstrated over the last three years that federal and provincial governments can work together to help families with children. The national child benefit is an outstanding example of federal-provincial collaboration.
We must now continue toward our goal that parents will no longer have to choose between a job and benefits for their children. Too often, we have seen people turn down jobs because they might lose their government benefits. Under the system we have introduced, in collaboration with provincial governments, people are motivated to keep their job because they are not penalized for working, as they were in the past.
We will therefore—and this is very important—make a third significant investment in the national child benefit for low income families with children, to be in place no later than July 1, 2001.
And we will seek a commitment from the provinces, who have all asked for this further federal contribution, to build on our investment by increasing their own investments in early childhood development.
Many years ago, Canadians and their governments, Liberal governments, I may add, of my predecessors, Mr. Pearson and Mr. Trudeau, committed themselves to a bold and noble objective.
In a country as prosperous as ours, senior Canadians should not be denied the security and dignity of an income.
We did not build our system of old age security and public pensions overnight. But we focused on our goal and, by and large, we succeeded.
Let us today make another ambitious commitment, this time a commitment to take the action necessary as a country, all levels of government working in partnership together with communities and the voluntary sector, so that every Canadian child can have the best possible start in life.
What kind of world will these children live in? Well, we can see it already. And we can also see how they will succeed. We enter a new century at a time of rapid change, the scope and speed of which the world has never seen.
It was a Canadian, Marshall McCluhan, who coined the phrase “global village”. Our researchers no longer compete with each other; they are in competition every day with the whole world. Our industries no longer compete locally; they compete globally. Globalization and technology have redefined the concept of the marketplace. This has a major implication for public policy.
To seize the opportunities of the new knowledge based economy requires a comprehensive and ambitious strategy. We have begun this in the last six years.
Our goal is for Canada to be known around the world as the place to be, the place of exciting opportunities.
If we set the right objectives, if we make the right investments, if we create the right partnerships and if we work together as a country, not only will we keep the best and the brightest in Canada, but we will attract the best and the brightest from around the world to Canada. And we will give more people in Canada the chance to become the best and the brightest.
The knowledge based industries which will provide the jobs of the future require access to a diverse range of skills close at hand to support them.
This is much easier for a large country like the United States to achieve than it is for a relatively small country like Canada. If we want to attract the investment Canada needs, we have to establish a type of critical mass and we can only do it through collaboration between governments, our universities, research institutions and the private sector.
Today our challenge as a country is to create a climate of opportunity for our graduate students and our graduates and to provide exciting opportunities for Canadian researchers and to attract the best academic researchers in the world to Canadian universities, and to do so at a time when worldwide competition for them has never been so fierce. And particularly at a time when United States universities benefit from both permanent endowments and the generosity of private foundations out of all proportion to those of our universities.
Over the years through the granting councils, the Medical Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Government of Canada has been far and away the largest contributor to university research in our country.
In recent years the granting councils have contributed to the pursuit of excellence by creating and supporting hundreds of research chairs in our universities. They are now prepared to build on what they have already begun.
The heads of the granting councils and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, working with some university presidents, in particular Dr. Robert Lacroix, the rector of the Université de Montréal, and Dr. Martha Piper, the president of UBC, have come to the government with an exciting and ambitious proposal.
They want to build on existing partnerships between our universities, the granting councils and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, to brand Canada around the world as the place to be for knowledge creation as we enter the 21st century, to enable Canadian universities to create outstanding research opportunities for the best and brightest Canadians.
They want to make Canada a place where Canadian students and graduates want to be, and to attract the global research stars of today and the future research stars of tomorrow, to attract to Canada some of the world's best minds from other countries and to create an environment to produce Canadian Nobel prize winners in the future. It is a plan for brain gain, not brain drain.
They have proposed a plan to establish over the next three years 1,200 new 21st century chairs for research excellence in universities across Canada.
They want to provide enough financial support for the total costs of research for each new research chair to make them internationally competitive and to set as an objective reaching a total of 2,000 new chairs for research excellence across Canada as soon as possible thereafter.
It is a plan I welcome and we welcome on this side of the House. It is a plan for excellence and international competitiveness which the government endorses enthusiastically. We will provide the required funding to the granting councils and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This investment in our granting councils to promote research and the quest for excellence will truly make Canada a leader in the knowledge based economy and will truly brand Canada as a country that values excellence and is committed to success, a country that is the place to be in the 21st century.
This is not all. We will introduce legislation in the next few weeks to create the Canadian institutes of health research to ensure that Canada stays in the forefront of health research, to create a more integrated system of health related research than in any other country, to ensure the pursuit of excellence in health research, to keep the best and brightest practitioners in Canada, and to attract to Canada the best and brightest from everywhere.
With the Canada millennium scholarship fund, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the 21st century chairs for research excellence and the Canadian institutes of health research, the government is putting in place a sweeping and comprehensive strategy for putting Canada in the forefront of the knowledge based economy of the 21st century.
Getting Canadians connected, to each other, to schools and libraries, to our diverse stories and voices, to government, to the marketplace and to the world, is one of the key elements in establishing Canada as a world leading economy and as a country of opportunity.
We must aim to be the most connected country in the world, a country which uses these connections in a dynamic and original way. Our goal is to make Canada a world leader in the smart use of electronic ways of doing business and to encourage the rapid use of e-commerce throughout the economy.
Today, I challenge all sectors of our country, private and public, government and business, to work together toward the goal of capturing 5% of the world share of e-commerce for Canada by the year 2003, and to do over $200 billion of business in this way.
By 2004, our goal is to be the most electronically connected government in the world to its citizens, so that Canadians can access all government information and services on-line at the time and place of their choosing.
Our success in the future will as never before depend on a population committed to learning, adapting to change, at ease with new technologies and the digital economy, and able to master new media.
Our ability to continue to lead in the world demands a commitment to ensuring that young Canadians have opportunities to acquire direct experience in these areas.
By March 31, 2001, 6,000 new community access sites will be established in urban and rural Canada, to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of geographic location, have affordable access to the Internet. To ensure they have the skills required to use new information technology, we will recruit up to 10,000 young Canadians to train community members of all ages.
The quality of our lives and the future strength of our society require a new generation of Canadians who have the skills of citizenship and leadership, who understand themselves and their country, and who are open to the world.
Our government has committed to an accord with the voluntary sector that will lay the foundation for a new, more effective partnership in the service of Canadians. We will work together to build a national volunteer initiative to mark the International Year of the Volunteer in the year 2001.
In collaboration with the voluntary sector the government will create a single window service called Exchanges Canada to give 100,000 young Canadians every year the chance to learn about another part of Canada, to live and experience another culture and language.
To develop projects in the arts, sports, science and community development, the development and maintenance of a strong basic infrastructure as well as a knowledge infrastructure are also key components of a competitive economy for the 21st century.
The environment, water and air quality, public health, tourism, transportation, telecommunications and cultural infrastructure must be well planned to meet the needs of a modern economy in urban Canada and in rural Canada. It will require partnership, federal, provincial, municipal and the private sector. It will require new resources from all the partners. It will require a commitment over the years. Therefore we will seek to reach an agreement with our provincial and municipal partners by no later than the end of next year to begin in 2001, or before if possible, a five year modern national infrastructure program for Canada.
In the new global economy a healthy environment and high quality of life go hand in hand. This is a matter of very high priority for the government. The environment is of importance to all Canadians and particularly to young Canadians. Our generation will be judged on the environmental legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren. Environmental quality is both a local and a global challenge. It requires both national action and international partnership.
Legislation will be introduced in this session of parliament to protect species at risk and their critical habitat. We will continue to extend Canada's national parks system. We will clean up contaminated sites in the country and protect the health of Canadians.
Canada enters the next century with enormous advantages. In an era of globalization we are a multicultural society whose people have roots in almost every country of the world. We are an Atlantic, a Pacific and an Arctic country. We belong both to the Commonwealth and to the Francophonie. We speak to the world through the values we have developed at home and we speak in two international languages.
As such we are well placed to promote human security and cultural diversity. We have earned a respected place in the world community. Over the last six years we have taken significant initiatives to help achieve shared international objectives like the land mines treaty and the International Criminal Court. We participated very actively at the beginning in the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia and in Kosovo. We took a leadership role in Haiti and now we are in East Timor.
In the post-cold war world it is more and more possible for foreign policy to focus not only on the relations between states but on the needs of people, needs that transcend borders. We are seeing the human side of globalization, human security, cultural diversity and human rights. The more people are safe and secure in their own countries, the more Canadians can live in safety and security at home, and our quality of life will be higher.
Our objective is to make a difference by using our ingenuity, the history of our international achievements and the respect with which Canada is held in the world to make progress on the human security agenda and to recognize that in a difficult world there will always be more progress to be made.
We are a very fortunate country. We are an affluent country. We have an obligation to do our part to help those who are very poor. This is our obligation to our fellow human beings. This too is the Canadian way. Therefore we will increase our international development assistance.
The foreign policy through which we project our values, coupled with the trade oriented economy and vigorous promotion of trade and investment interests, will make Canada very well positioned for the global economy of the 21st century.
This afternoon I have spoken about the country that we are so proud of, the country that we have built so well in the 20th century.
Today I have set out a comprehensive strategy for Canadian leadership in the knowledge-based economy and for promoting our interests and projecting our values in the world, a vision for the Canada of the 21st century and a plan to achieve it, a vision of the Canadian model, a modern project of a society, the project of a forward-looking country.
These are not old solutions to the problems of today, but new plans to meet new opportunities. It is a strategy to ensure that the opportunities of all of Canada are available to all Canadians; a strategy to ensure that Canadians shape their future in the Canadian way; a strategy for people, for opportunity, for excellence, for success, for a high quality of life, for sharing, dignity and mutual respect, for creativity and innovation.
It is a realistic strategy for a realistic country, a caring strategy for a caring country, a modern strategy for a modern country, an ambitious strategy for an ambitious country and a bold strategy for a bold country. It is a strategy for the future for a country of the future, a country that is open to the world and willing to lead.
Canadians are not a boastful people. We are not given to flag waving or emotional excesses. In a century, indeed in a millennium, that has seen so much bloodshed over differences of faith, race and nationality, perhaps that is a good thing. Instead, with quiet confidence we have adopted a Canadian way of living together, resolving differences, reasoning together and creating what is quite simply the best country in the world in which to live.
I began today by referring to the famous remark of Sir Wilfrid Laurier about the 20th century belonging to Canada. I do not know if the 21st century will belong to Canada, but I do know something even more important: Canada belongs to the 21st century and Canada will be the place to be in the 21st century. The world has seen the future and it is Canada.