Mr. Speaker, first my congratulations to you on your new and most honourable and difficult task. We welcome your presence in the chair today.
Also, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Mercier. In her first speech in the House, I appreciated the strength of her convictions, but I am also prepared to co-operate with her in a spirit of collaboration in the process of reforming social security programs. I look forward to that, in fact.
Mr. Speaker, you will recognize that this is not my first speech in the House nor my first throne speech. I still treat each opportunity with a certain frisson. There is an element of excitement.
I want to begin by expressing my thanks to my family who are the great source of my ability to participate in public life. They are a source of great encouragement when I most need it.
This is the International Year of the Family. I hope somewhere along the way the United Nations will reserve a special little spot in its declaration for the political family that provides a service that only those who are involved can fully understand and acknowledge.
Once again I want to thank my electors from the city of Winnipeg who have supported me going into my third decade of public service. It is a great honour to represent them and to speak for them.
As we have talked about in this House, many members are discovering for the first time that they have a telephone with which they can respond to constituents' wishes. For those of us who have been doing it for well over 20 years we recognize that that still is a fundamental task.
I would also like to express a great deal of appreciation for the chance once again of being a member of a government under the present Prime Minister. I have gratitude for the opportunity that he has given me to serve in this post.
I came into politics 22 years ago because I was disturbed by what I saw around me in my neighbourhood, the condition of the children and of the city itself, the poverty that existed.
It is a great tribute to the way our democracy works that eventually one is given the responsibility and mandate for however short a time to fulfil those great hopes that one had many years ago to do something for the people one represents.
In accepting the position of Minister of Human Resources Development, I accepted the mandate of helping all Canadians, Mr. Speaker, be they Atlantic fishermen, poor children in eastern Ontario, unemployed Ontarians, native people on the Prairies or school dropouts in British Columbia.
At that time, all Canadians, not only Quebecers and Westerners, stressed the need for a new social security system that would provide employment and hope.
I speak today not just for those who elected me, not just for the region of Canada which I welcome to represent, but I have the rare opportunity to speak for all Canadians. I ask every member of this House to remember that obligation which brought them here.
I was interested in the comments of the hon. member for Mercier who spoke with great feeling about the problems she sees in her home city and her home province. I say to the hon. member that those problems are shared by Canadians from coast to coast. They are not unique to Quebec. They are not unique to any one region of the country.
Unfortunately, in this time and in this place the problems of unemployment, the lack of security, the feeling of disillusionment, the lack of economic opportunity, are too common. If there is one thing that unifies this country it is that in the last 10 years Canadians have not been given much opportunity to feel they had a place in society. That is why we have an obligation in representing all Canadians to restore that sense of hope and opportunity that still exists.
We talk about the issue of social security. It is interesting that one of the great changes which has taken place in this generation is how people do have a feeling that what used to be a firm base of their existence no longer is there-their jobs. For better or for worse that has been the touchstone of much of what has given people the sense of belonging, of having a sense of dignity.
A survey I read recently showed that close to 50 per cent of Canadians no longer have that sense of security. They do not have it because, in a sense, the future no longer appears to them as one where choices can be made. It appears to them also that the rules of the game in Canada are no longer fair.
My philosophy as a Liberal is that fairness is the principle and justice is at the centre of our society. Each one of us must be given the chance to shape our own life and those of our families in our own way as long as we allow other individuals in society the right to do the same. To make that happen we have to have rules that make sure there is equal opportunity, a sense of fair play and a sense of fairness for everybody.
In the last 10 years that sense of fairness has been lost. Too often there are high paying, stable, good jobs for a minority of Canadians, and insecure, part-time, no jobs for a large portion of Canadians.
We have had growing gaps in income. We have had a shrinking middle class. We have had over a million children facing the situation of poverty. I recall with sadness reading a column in the Globe and Mail which I thought was a very good piece of journalism. It spoke of 40 per cent of Canadian children who go to school today without proper nourishment or nurturing. There is a lot of love being lost in this world because there is nobody there to give it.
When I hear people say to me that we must defend what exists, I ask them to talk to those children who do not have enough to eat, who do not get enough parental care. Talk to the young men and women of this country, a lost generation, who have done everything we have asked them to do. They have gone to school, got a good certificate, a good degree, and have come out into the working world and there is no work for them.
I ask them to talk to the displaced workers in our fishery industries who have seen an entire industry disappear before them. They say: "We do not want to simply collect a cheque every week. We want to put our shoes on every morning and go somewhere where we can make a contribution to society, to our families and to our community, but we are not given the chance". Simply collecting a UI cheque is not good enough. They must be given the hope that UI cheque will lead to decent, hard, serious work in this society. That is why we must make a change.
We hear a great deal of talk about fiscal deficits in Canada. There is a human deficit as well.
There is a lack of resources to invest in Canadians. There is a lack of effective programs that are essential for training, for the unemployed and for welfare.
It would be a serious mistake to wipe the whole slate clean. I do not have a lot of patience for those in the three piece suits who say: "Cut the social programs" when they themselves are not prepared to make any sacrifices. It is not a matter of cutting social programs; it is a matter of going to the root causes of what is wrong in our society and redesigning the programs to meet those causes. That is what the effort of our government will be.
I invite all members to participate. As our friends from the Reform Party say, forget for a moment the ideology or the platform that brought us here. What we are saying is that all of us, every single one of us, have a job to do in this Parliament to help reform the system for Canadians, to once again restore their sense of security, their sense of fairness and their sense of hope. We understand as a government that we have a special responsibility because that was the mandate we were given.
The red book struck a chord when we said that we want a country whose people live in hope, not fear. We want a country where all see themselves as contributors and participants, not liabilities and dependants. We want a country whose adults can find good jobs and whose children can realize their potential. When our Prime Minister speaks about the red book that is the core, that is the spirit. Everyone has a fair chance.
I ask members to refrain from raising alarms of fear. We must go on a basis of trust and confidence. I ask members, in particular because there are many eyes upon this House these days, to treat this subject with the seriousness it deserves. I believe strongly that this is a time when there is a willingness to make serious changes.
I spoke about the red book. We want to clearly signal our intentions to Canadians right at the start. We have proposed a youth service corps. The Secretary of State for Youth and Training has now completed a round of consultations with a variety of users. We will be making announcements within the
next month about a series of projects based upon existing organizations that are prepared to collaborate and help-
-throughout the country-
-in every single part and region.
Our red book also put forward a very clear proposal for a program of apprenticeship. We believe one of the real failures of our present system is that it does not address people during the most vulnerable periods: children before they go to school, young people when they leave school and go into the workplace. That is why the internship program, as I prefer to call it, is designed to make that possible.
Again we have been meeting constantly with a wide variety of private sector groups throughout this country to see if we can bring them in as part of a broad-based program for young people to acquire on the job skills with the co-operation of the employers, government and the educational systems.
I said that to my colleagues on the other side of this House. That is why we must have a national program, because we are sharing the responsibility among all groups, regions and sectors in Canada.
That is not a problem only for them, but for all Canadians, and we need the co-operation of all sectors, all regions, and everyone.
I simply want to signal that in these efforts to target our young people particularly it is the beginning of a much broader approach. That is because we see that we must provide our young people with a virtual guarantee of work, training or education. The world of work has changed so dramatically and so radically that we can no longer expect that a formal education for the first 16 years is enough. We must become a learning society that enables young people and adults alike to constantly recycle their skills and recycle their aptitudes so they can meet the new world of work with competence and vigour.
When we talk about reform of the social security net that is why it also must include serious discussions of training and education as supplied at the federal level. It must be linked with unemployment insurance and it must be linked up with social assistance plans. These are not separate programs. These are not stove pipes that spew smoke into the air. They are all linked together so that we can provide a total fabric of opportunity, of basic standards at which people exist.
That is why one of the first principles of our reform is that it must be comprehensive. We cannot cherry pick any more. We cannot tinker away at one little program after another. That was the problem during the last 10 years. The government was constantly bringing in amendments and changes to unemployment insurance or the Canada Assistance Plan.
Who knows this better than the leader of the opposition who was a member of the government that was always changing social programs when he was a member of that government. He would recognize now that it was a mistake to do it that way. We must do it in a broad comprehensive way.
We must also do it in a way that is transparent and public. The time has come that we can no longer have private agendas. That is why it is the commitment of this government to ensure that in the reform of our social security system, our programs on training and employment, social assistance and the unemployment insurance and student aid, the place for decision and discussion will be here in Parliament.
This will be the place where the decisions and dialogue take place. This will be the place where Canadians have the opportunity to express their views and be heard. I hear members opposite say that we must make Parliament important and that they have all kinds of mechanical solutions. The real way to make Parliament important is to discuss important things in Parliament and make sure that Canadians see that this is the place where the vital interests of their lives will be discussed, debated and decided. That is why the fundamental right of social security will be a primary issue of this House over the next year. You have our commitment on that.
We also must make sure that the proposals, solutions and ideas that we have are Canadian-made. We have taken great pride in this country over the years. We have made real progress.
Contrary to the comments made by the hon. member for Mercier, we have made much progress for the elderly. We have increased old age security and the progress made in our country results from the efforts made by the federal government and the provinces.
That is a real accomplishment.
We have also been able to say to our young people in large part that we provided good opportunities for education. We have provided a real fundamental security foundation during times of recession.
Now the times have changed and we must change with them. We must change our programs. We must begin to look at Canadian-made solutions. One constant irritation I had sitting on the opposite side over the last nine or ten years was when ministers of the crown at that time would bring in solutions to economic problems that they had borrowed from somebody else. They were always using somebody else's model, somebody else's idea and somebody else's ideology. It is time once again that Canadians were responsible for designing a social security
system that gives them a sense of their own identity and their own importance.
I see your signal, Mr. Speaker, and I respect that, but I want to make this final case. I believe that if we do our work well, bring the different voices of Canada together to sing in a single chorus and if we give and restore a sense of hope to a lot of Canadians then nothing will be a stronger unifier. Nothing will bring us together more and nothing will give Canadians a greater sense of hope and opportunity than if their members of Parliament from all regions and everywhere in Canada are working together to build a system that will be distinctly Canadian. That will give Canadians a sense of who we are and what we can do and bring that special touch that we have brought to the world so often: compassion, understanding and humanity.
That will say to all Canadians that this is why we are different. We are not different because we take different stands from other countries but because we are able to design for Canadians the way we want to live and give people once again, in this great tumult that we face around the world, a feeling that this is a place that belongs to them and that everybody has a fair chance.
