Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke on his maiden speech. His points were well taken and I look forward to his continued participation in the debates of this House.
I would also like to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on your recent appointment as Deputy Speaker of this assembly. I have every confidence that the team assembled possesses the necessary skills and abilities to successfully oversee the affairs of this 36th Parliament of Canada.
I am very happy to be here today.
The riding of Leeds—Grenville is a dynamic mix of agriculture, business, industry, the service sector and with the support of an efficient CTC and the efforts of enlightened entrepreneurs is fast becoming a tourist destination for the world.
As a newly elected member for this great riding, I want to thank all my constituents for their support and confidence. I want to assure them that although I am truly honoured it is the tremendous responsibility of representing them in Parliament that will serve to guide my actions.
As is customary in a maiden speech I would like to take this opportunity to recognize my predecessor, a man who quietly and effectively went about his work, a man whose actions demonstrated not only the political knowledge to differentiate between right and left but also a clear and fundamental understanding of the difference between right and wrong. He provided me with a vision of a better day as well as a weekly allowance and occasionally the keys to the family car.
History will show that Jim Jordan was a politician who clearly cared more for the public than he ever did about public relations. Throughout his career this approach was all too often dismissed as unsophisticated and old-fashioned but I believe he was ahead of his time. And as the political pundits are predicting chaos for this session of Parliament, it might serve us all well to revisit some of his qualities.
I am proud to add my voice in support of the Speech from the Throne. I wish to preface my comments with the point that the very fact we are now engaging in a discussion about how we might spend surpluses is a tribute to the sound monetary and fiscal management of the 35th Parliament of Canada.
The tough decisions and sacrifices that Canadians made have served to open doors of opportunity for us as a country. But we have some fundamental decisions to make. The key here is that we are now in a position to debate and make those decisions and not have those decisions made for us.
One of the central themes of the throne speech was the commitment to co-operation between various levels of government.
I was born into a family of seven boys and can attest to the fact that co-operation is far easier to preach than to practise. But open participation in competent, transparent processes with clear evaluation mechanisms is the key to Canada's continued success on the world stage.
There is no doubt as recent history has shown that certain traditional federal powers have been better exercised at the provincial or even the municipal level, but gravity need not be the only force at work in this process. If the federal government is to exercise its responsibilities in a global and highly competitive world, then certain traditional provincial powers might be better exercised at the federal level. When we talk of a collaborative approach to strengthening and modernizing Canada's social union, let elected representatives focus on allocating powers to the government level where the interests of Canadians, not politicians, will be best served.
I was particularly pleased to hear the reference in the throne speech to environmental technologies and the potential for growth and global leadership. If we commit to targeting this vital sector with the goal of developing commercially viable, sustainable development practices, then we as a nation will not only have demonstrated the ability to live within our means, but we will also have developed the capacity to live within our world.
I want to be clear about this concept. It does not involve disadvantaging Canadian companies by enforcing high output standards. Certainly, regulation is required. But we need to put our collective energies into how governments can support sustainable practices given the self-policing concepts of profit and competition inherent in free markets. Canadian firms will be able to expand into emerging markets with higher quality products at lower prices because of, not in spite of, sustainable practices.
The political risks of such initiatives are being eliminated as successes are being documented. The popularity of recycling programs demonstrates that when efforts toward sustainability can be brought into a legitimate arena, the public will respond. The challenge for us then is to clearly bring all aspects of sustainability into the realm of legitimacy. That is going to require some fundamental shifts in thinking and a healthy dose of collective effort.
Business and engineering schools will need to begin to teach decision making models and algorithms that incorporate comprehensive costing principles. Certainly, disposal and remanufacturing costs are every bit as real as inventory and transportation costs. Industry will need to recognize sustainable growth as the opportunity that it is.
As we continue to saturate markets and as technology shortens traditional product life cycles, the latent demand for this sector will present Canadian companies with opportunities to develop and market proprietary technologies globally. Companies will need to work in consultation with the government to ensure that policies such as lifetime product stewardship have appropriate phase in periods to allow for the necessary design changes.
The government needs to show leadership through co-operative domestic regulation and aggressive global negotiations to allow the industries committed to the future to prosper and grow. I have every confidence that Canada can and will be at the leading edge of sustainable technologies. The co-operative and incremental adoption of economically successful sustainable practices is critical to the continued success of Canadian society and I feel will be an area of considerable comparative advantage well into the next century.
The throne speech also directed necessary resources toward the problem of youth unemployment. The lack of secure employment manifests itself in any number of social symptoms. By treating the problem we can begin to break some of the cycles that served to frustrate the youth of this country.
As a representative of a riding that has seen its fair share of downsizing and restructuring, although the youth need jobs, so do the displaced workers. We must strive to address both the long and short term requirements of society. As a government we must strike a balance between the present and the future.
The throne speech outlined a strategy for expanding opportunities in aboriginal communities. As I worked on the text of this response to the throne speech, I spent a great deal of time and energy struggling with the semantics of the complex concept of sustainable development. I smiled at myself as I recalled the Iroquois practice of making decisions based on the impact they would have on the seventh generation from now. I cannot help but wonder what other wheels we as a nation need not reinvent if we can restore the health back to these cultures.
I regret the fact that time does not allow me to comment on all aspects of what I truly believe is an enlightened framework, but there are a few more points I would like to mention. It strikes me as we talk of the new millennium that January 1, 2000 is a day after December 31, 1999. Let us not miss the opportunity to accomplish as much as we did in the last two years in the next two years. Let us commit to working toward, not simply planning for, the new millennium.
In key areas of challenge such as unity, health care, crime and poverty the speech contained a common theme. There is considerable evidence to support that early and aggressive intervention can be correlated to positive long term outcomes. As my predecessor would have said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Let us commit as a Parliament to focusing on that elusive ounce of prevention for I believe it sets a much less confrontational and much more productive agenda.
Let us remember that democracy is a precious thing but it is merely a means and not an end. It is what we choose to do in this place, not the fact that we are in this place that transforms shared values into actions.
