Official Statement
A century ago, a great banquet was held just a few blocks from Parliament Hill. It was a different time.
The walls were decorated with Union Jacks. The air was thick with smoke from cigars and pipes. The women in attendance wore white gloves. And Sir Wilfrid Laurier was at the rostrum.
The Governor-General stood, the Leader of the Opposition stood - everyone stood and applauded when the great Liberal prime minister boldly declared that the 20th century would belong to Canada.
We are one hundred years removed from that night and those words, but the sense of national optimism is no less grand in our time.
We know who we are and what we want to do as a nation. The unity of our country is strong. We have social programs that are the envy of so many others.
We are rich in cultural diversity. We have a balanced budget, a feat matched by no other nation of the G8. We are active in bringing peace and freedom to troubled parts of the globe.
Today, Laurier's confidence echoes in every corner of this vast land, but the world has changed. For us to succeed in this generation, it is not so much that the 21st Century will belong to Canada as it is Canada that must belong to the 21st century.
This will not come to us simply for the asking. We must work for it. The world is smaller now, the challenges more pressing, the obstacles more formidable.
Opportunity is less likely to be found; instead, it must be made.
What does this mean for us as Canadians? It means that in all our pursuits, settling for good enough is not good enough.
We must push ourselves as a nation to be the very best we can, because the world will indeed challenge us.
Government is not exempt from the realities of modern times. It too must push to be the best it can be for Canadians. That's why, even though we have been in office only a short time, we have brought significant change to the way Ottawa works.
Change in terms of restoring the influence of members of Parliament through free votes and an increased role in the appointment of senior officials; change in the way government monitors and controls its expenditures; change in the way that government is accountable to Canadians.
This is what government must do. We identified a problem: the democratic deficit. And we took immediate action by implementing transformative change.
Let me pause here for a minute. Transformative change. What does that mean? To me, it means a fundamental shift in approach and direction, it is not stop-gap measures imposed incrementally.
It requires a determined focus and a relentless drive. But the reward is tangible results, progress you can see and gauge.
Let me give you another example. Let me take you back almost a decade, back inside the Department of Finance, where work was underway on the 1995 budget.
Simply put, Canada's finances were a mess. A succession of governments had for almost 30 years attempted to tackle the problem with incremental measures.
The result was a government that had borrowed so much that it found itself having to answer first to its creditors and only second to the needs of its own people.
That's when we knew it wouldn't be good enough just to reduce the deficit. We'd have to eliminate it. And to do that, we'd need to cast aside old approaches, old assumptions, and conventional wisdom.
Well, that's exactly what we did in the '95 budget. It was controversial, and it was tough.
But in a few years it brought us a balanced budget, a diminishing debt load and the ability to deliver the largest tax cuts in Canadian history.
Most importantly, it brought us the capacity to determine our own future, to make our own choices and we've never looked back.
Well that was then and this is now.
The challenges facing government are different today, but I believe we must adopt the same bold approach.
We must be focused and unyielding. We must challenge the status quo. To that end, we have determined that, among the many important missions and responsibilities of government, there are five areas in which we must proceed with particular vigour, creativity and urgency.
Five areas we will pursue as overriding priorities.
These: - health care, learning, Canada's aboriginal peoples, our communities large and small, and our role in the world - are areas in which quite simply we must break new ground.
In pursuing these goals we will remain committed to fiscal prudence. But this does not mean that we are helplessly constrained.
By undertaking aggressive expenditure review - as we are already doing - by reallocating resources and taking advantage of the new revenues presented by economic growth, the fact is we will be able to marshal the funds we require to bring about real progress on the issues that matter most to Canadians.
Ours will be a progressive, responsible approach. And it will get the job done! It will reflect an understanding that the Canada of a decade hence is being formed in the choices we make today.
Any discussion of our government's priorities must begin with health care, for there is no other issue of such vital and visceral significance to Canadians. Nowhere does government interact with people in a more meaningful and consequential way.
Most of us have experienced anxious moments waiting in a hospital emergency room. Many have endured the uneasy wait for diagnostic tests. Some have spent long nights staring hopefully at monitors in the Intensive Care Unit.
Every day in our hospitals pass moments that alter the course of human lives. This is when people need their governments most.
So what do we want? We want reform. Reform that starts and ends with a mind to patients and their families.
Reform that makes doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals available when needed, and where needed.
Reform that ensures timely access to quality services that improve health outcomes.
Canadians want and need reform that ensures that diagnostic tests, surgeries and treatments are governed by need, not rationed by waiting.
We need reform that makes it absolutely certain that our system of publicly funded, universally available health care, a program that was introduced when many baby boomers were just becoming adults, will be there for their grandchildren and beyond.
Of course money is part of it. The system has to be properly funded. But reform does not begin with a dollar sign and end with a bunch of zeros.
The federal government has already committed $37-billion in new money to health care over five years. That represents a better than 8 per cent annual increase in spending. And I tell you today that we will invest more.
But here's the reality: Canada as a nation already spends more per capita on health than the great majority of developed countries, yet our outcomes, while good, are not discernibly better.
Guided by the work of Roy Romanow and many others who have studied the health system exhaustively, and fully involving health care professionals, who are on the front line. Canada needs real reform that delivers real results. Results that are measured and then reported transparently so that we all can see how well the health care system is working and where it needs improvement.
The challenge before us is to restore public confidence in the health care system and in our ability to fix it. To do so we will need to begin by demonstrating real progress in specific areas - the most visible symbols of the system's stress; the ones that too many Canadians are personally familiar with.
Any discussion of health care runs the risk of deteriorating into generalities. So let me be specific: We must reduce wait times. Canadians need to know, Wherever they live, how long it takes to get an MRI, how long it takes to see a doctor, to get needed hip surgery, and how quickly their child will be seen in the emergency ward.
And Canadians need to know how governments will bring those wait times down.
What can governments do to reduce wait times? Working with provinces and territories, we must find ways to resolve the shortage of medical providers that exists in too many parts of our country; we must open up medical spaces in our universities, both for young Canadians seeking entry, and new immigrants seeking qualification; we must determine an appropriately expanded role for nurse practitioners and other paramedical personnel; and we must ensure that our diagnostic facilities are adequate and fully utilized.
Working with our provincial and territorial partners, we must also build on progress being made in primary care renewal to ensure the right response by the right health care provider and we must work together to establish a program on home and community care services.
Why? Because appropriate home care will reduce the burden on acute-care resources, It will make better services available to Canadians and ultimately result in a less costly and more sustainable system.
The reform plan must also include a national pharmaceuticals strategy,
because no Canadian should suffer undue financial hardship as a result of needed drug therapy.
Implementation of these important reforms will come as part of a 10-year plan that we'll seek to work out with the provinces and territories. We're finished with the year-to-year scramble for short-term solutions.
What the provinces need now is a long-term agreement that guarantees predictable, reliable funding. What we all need is a fundamental commitment to reform.
Medicare is more than just another government program. It is a statement of our values as a nation. That's why I'm going to meet with the premiers this summer - not just for lunch or dinner or over a weekend.
But for as long as it takes for us to agree on a long term plan for a health care system that is properly funded, clearly sustainable and significantly reformed.
Health care is this government's number one priority. We will come to an agreement with the provinces, because we must. We will implement a long-term plan, because we must. And because we must, we will provide a fix for a generation.
Let's talk now about learning. And let's start by putting its importance in context: We all understand that a strong economy is the foundation on which a successful society is built.
That's why we strive to reduce taxes and debt. That's why we invest in research and development, and why we endeavour to commercialize what comes of that R&D.
That's why we focus on securing trading partnerships around the world and keeping open the border with the United States.
That's why sustainable development cannot be only a pious wish, why it must be a fundamental pillar underlying the nature of economic growth.
And most critically, that's why we have to understand that competing in the 21st century demands a population geared to innovation.
Quite simply, Canada's educated talent pool must be among the deepest and the best available anywhere - for their sake and for our sake.
In some countries, it's not uncommon to hear a people speak of the need to restrict trade, to close borders to global competition.
Clearly a flawed approach - but the truth is that for us in Canada, it's not even an option. We are a nation of only thirty one million people.
We have no choice but to face global competition and we have no alternative but to win. And this is why we have to reduce the barriers to continuing education.
It's true that we are among the world's leaders in the percentage of people receiving a post-secondary education. But we must do better.
We must address the fact that we rank far below the United States in the percentage of students who achieve post-graduate degrees.
The federal government has an important role to play in post-secondary education, and it begins with access. We as a society cannot deprive people of opportunity simply because their families don't have money.
That's why last month's budget contained important down payments to address the issue of affordability. We introduced a Learning Bond for children of lower-income families.
We increased government matching funds for education savings. We improved the Canada Student Loans program.
We established a first-year grant to help students from low income families get through the initial gate and into the classroom.
That being said, we have a long way to go!
For example, we must recognize that as a nation we face a growing skills shortage - and that we must start talking about the openings for our young people who apprentice in the skilled trades.
In short, we've got to work with the colleges, with the unions and the industry sector councils, to find ways to enable young people to understand that education has many facets.
The last budget was the second major education budget in recent years, but it is only the beginning. We must understand that a Canadian's ultimate success in post-secondary education begins in earliest childhood, in fact prenatal to age six, when intellectual and emotional potential can be encouraged and nurtured.
Literacy must be fostered early. Those who require remedial assistance need to be identified early. And later on, Canadians must have access to a culture of continuous retooling, a philosophy underpinned by a series of life long learning initiatives that, overtime become a way of life.
Our goal is to help ensure that significantly more Canadians achieve a post-secondary level of learning and training, and that significantly more of these Canadians move on to pursue post-graduate degrees, and ever-improving skills development during their careers. This will help more people lead better lives. And their individual success will lead to our greater achievement as a nation.
Canada's aboriginal peoples represent the fastest growing segment of our population. They make up the youngest group in our society.
Aboriginal children represent an important part of our future. Yet theirs is collectively a story of promise untapped and promises unfulfilled.
Decades of well-intentioned government policies have been enacted to insufficient benefit.
Our goal is to reverse that path.
The federal government has undertaken many initiatives - on health care, on housing, on early childhood education and recently on clean water - but we're dealing with problems that can't be solved simply by writing a cheque.
We must be smart enough to do things differently. Let me give you an example of what I mean:
Increasingly these days, young Aboriginals are moving to our major centres in search of a job and a better life. Think of the culture shock: a young person from a small and remote reserve arriving alone downtown in a major city.
How could we possibly be surprised to discover that so many have trouble making the adjustment.
If young Aboriginals are coming to the major cities, and they are in large numbers, we have got to make it possible for them to succeed - we've got to remove obstacles and create opportunities, and we will.
In short - If helping hope to thrive and opportunity to flourish is needed on reserve, it is also needed in the inner city.
We will work to remove obstacles and create opportunities for Canada's Aboriginal peoples. We will help hope to thrive and opportunity to flourish.
Because those are the components of an enduring human equation: hope plus opportunity equals success on reserves as well as in the city.
To achieve measurable progress, it is clear that new approaches are necessary, from all sides.
Government must put an end to the paternalistic approach that embodies too much of its activities.
Aboriginal Leadership must now deliver on the principles of open, and accountable government.
True progress starts with a full partnership, and with all the rights and responsibilities on both sides that partnership entails.
That's why I have asked Aboriginal leaders from across the country to come to Ottawa this coming Monday to sit down with more than 20 government ministers and me.
This will be an important summit. Its message must be that the changes we all want to see will not be measured in rhetoric, they will be measured in meaningful improvements in quality-of-life indicators - better health care and housing. And in the essential economic indicators - more kids finishing high school, more going to university, more successful Aboriginal businesses, all of which lead to more economic development and greater self sufficiency.
Quite simply, we need a new beginning - let it be this Monday.
Let me turn now to the places where we live.
As a government, we've already made a priority of helping communities find new sources of predictable, long-term funding - from our biggest cities to our smallest towns. By giving municipalities full relief from the GST, we'll be handing over $7-billion to them during the next decade. We see this as an important beginning.
But it can only be the beginning. The fact is our municipalities are on the front lines of every social problem and economic opportunity in the country.
The problem is they are working off a 19th century blueprint for a 21st century economic reality. Therefore, the federal government will ask the Premiers and municipal leaders to start discussions on how our cities and towns should be provided with the resources they need.
We'll be talking about more innovative partnerships that would enable us to better deal with the huge infrastructure deficit the country and its municipalities confront.
And we'll be talking about the gas tax, and we'll be doing that before the end of this year.
Our major cities are the focal points around which economic, social and cultural innovation take place. As they go, so does the country.