Reflections on Canada and on Canadian Identity and Unity

March 29, 1999

I am pleased to add my warmest congratulations to the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador on this historic occasion, and I salute Premier Tobin and the organizers of this conference for assembling here in St. John’s such a fine array of the province’s citizenry and guests from across Canada.

As we heard so eloquently this morning, we are here to celebrate 50 years of Newfoundland’s partnership in what I believe is the most successful country in the world — 50 years that have not been always bright or easy for the people of this province. But 50 years of steady progress with profound adjustments along the way have prepared Newfoundland and Labrador for a more certain and prosperous future.

I share the general optimism in the future expressed by John Crosbie, Ed Roberts and Peter Neary this morning — a future that will be shaped by new forces and new ways of doing things — but a future that will still rely on the most basic strengths for which Newfoundlanders are famous — grit and determination. That determination was summed up by the Newfoundland humorist Ray Guy with the following words. "Your average Newfoundlander is water proof, dust proof, shock resistant and anti-magnetic. Just as racehorses have been bred for legs and wind, he has been bred for three hundred years for durability."

I have been asked to join with my fellow panelists this afternoon to offer some reflections on "Accommodating our Differences — Identity and Union". Last night, on a very bumpy flight to St. John’s, I jotted down some very personal observations of what the Canadian identity and the Canadian union mean to me, and how this perception of identity and union have enabled Canadians to accommodate our differences, successfully, for such a long time.

I begin with my earliest impressions of Canada as a child growing up in the beautiful town of Nelson in the southeastern interior of British Columbia. I was the son of parents who in the early 1920s had fled the civil strife that was engulfing the Italian peninsula. Freedom, democracy, a comparatively classless society, and the ability to succeed on the basis of hard work and personal initiative were the virtues that my parents most closely associated with their newly adopted country. Respect for those virtues is what they instilled in me. I shall never forget being stood up on a chair and being told by my father, "count your blessings, you are a Canadian. When you grow up, you must honour and respect your country in whatever you do, and in so doing you will bring honour to yourself".

As I think back to those early years, there are a number of indelible images that remain with me to this very day.

Of the awe that I felt when at school I looked at the world map and at the great, red landmass straddling three oceans. The Dominion of Canada, it said, and the teacher reminded us that it was the world’s second largest country, but the first of the great dominions of the Empire.

I remember the fascination that gripped me as I learned about Canada’s first peoples, rhyming off with ease their proud ancestral names: Micmac, Iroquois, Algonquin, Cree, Haida and Inuit.

I remember as well the excitement with which I read of the superhuman exploits of our earliest explorers: Cabot, Champlain, La Vérendrye, MacKenzie, Vancouver and so many others. They were my first heroes and to me they remain among our greatest to this very day. They battled with incredible courage against the unknown, against a wilderness overwhelming in its vastness, against unimaginable hardships — driven by their thirst for discovery.

The idea of Canada at this point in my life was understandably primal — of great mountains, rivers and valleys, of rock and forest. I was in so many ways not simply close to nature, but of it — relishing in hikes in mountain meadows, fishing for trout in local streams, sleeping outdoors on beds of soft pine needles, bathing in glacial lakes.

Gradually, Canada came to mean much more — the reading of history was de rigeur in our household. Canada, I discovered, was no simple creation. It was the triumph of the will over what many would have said was unattainable. I learned of the clash between the two great founding European peoples, the English and French, of the struggle for responsible government, of the great leap of faith that was Confederation, of the bridging of the continent with ribbons of steel, of the National Policy, of the two great wars where Canada’s contribution was greatly disproportionate to our size, and of Canada’s emergence as a strong, confident, prosperous and idealistic country.

In the first-ever debate in which I participated, I spoke for the affirmative. The resolution was "that the 20th century belongs to CANADA". I won the debate — there were no doubts in my mind.

My vision then was of a Canada confident and strong, a model to the world, a country that I once described in an essay as the noblest of experiments, a country not with one face but many, a country truly enriched by its ever-changing diversity.

With the United States border only several miles away, as a youngster I had the opportunity often to visit the great Republic to the south. Not then, and not since, have I had any difficulty in understanding the important and in my view fundamental differences between our two societies.

Almost a decade of university studies in Canada’s west and east and abroad did nothing to change this bright, optimistic vision that I had of the country. Indeed, my studies in comparative constitutional laws at the London School of Economics only reaffirmed my strong personal commitment to the special brand of federalism that we know in Canada.

In the late sixties, I had the good fortune to see Canadian federalism at work in a real sense. I spent three and a half years on Prime Minister Trudeau’s staff. Think back with me to those heady times: the Just Society; the Official Languages Act; the attempt at a national policy on aboriginal peoples; the FLQ crisis; the efforts at making regional development policies work in the Maritimes, and at convincing Westerners that they mattered; the near success of the Victoria Charter aimed at establishing a new constitutional order.

What did I learn? That Canada is complex, that accommodating our differences — the theme of this panel — requires leadership, generosity of spirit and compromise.

I also had confirmed clearly in my mind that the idea of Canada is greater than the sum of its parts. That Canada is more than a coming together of provinces and regions. That there is a Canadian people, a Canadian identity, a Canadian personality. That the genius of Canadian federalism allows both the individual parts and the whole to express themselves, to adopt and to grow.

Today, I stand before you here in St. John’s, a great deal more experienced and hopefully wiser, with my enthusiasm and optimism for Canada still deep and irrepressible. During the past 25 years, the country has changed a great deal and in my view largely for the better. Much of the change, as you know, has been in the area of the economy, an area in which I have been active in policy and advocacy terms as the head of Canada’s Business Council on National Issues.

When I took on the job, my highest priority was to do everything I could to help prepare Canada for the then rapidly coming challenge of globalization — a challenge that Canadians had no choice but to win. Failure would have condemned Canadians to an erosion of our standard of living, a weakening of our national identity and to the marginalization of our enterprises and our work force.

The task was a formidable one. We had to get the inflation under control that was eating away at our collective earning power. We had to break the back of public deficits that were taking ever growing and huge amounts of our taxes simply to pay the interest. We had to improve the security of our access to our most important market, the United States, hence our advocacy of the historic Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. We had to ensure that our enterprises and our work force were better, smarter, and healthier. This is why we supported a carefully targeted spending in the critical areas of education, innovation and health care. We have never wavered in our belief that an effective, publicly funded health care system is the best option for Canadians.

As we prepare to enter the 21st century, Canada and Canadians are in much better shape to meet the challenge than would have been the case if we had not tackled the many often painful and certainly controversial policies I have mentioned. And the world community agrees: the World Economic Forum ranked Canada the fifth most competitive economy in 1998 — up from 16th in 1994. The UN Quality of Life Index has given Canada top spot five years in a row. The Canadian passport is the most sought after in the world.

But we still have a lot of work to do. Growth and opportunities in Canada are uneven. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador know this better than anyone. Unemployment rates are too high. Canada’s public debt, while falling, is still huge. And high levels of personal taxes have denied Canadians any significant appreciation in disposable income for far too long.

The need to address our outstanding economic weaknesses is not an end in itself as some of our critics have suggested that we espouse. Nor should anyone take seriously the charge by some that the economic vision I have outlined is part of a sinister, corporate conspiracy to sell out our country, our enterprises and our workers. Such notions are without foundation, and are unworthy.

Tackling our outstanding economic weaknesses is the means to assure that Canada will be a global economic leader in the years to come.

And yet, you and I know that the attainment of global economic leadership status in itself would be a hollow victory if poverty and unemployment continue to afflict significant numbers of Canadians wherever they may live; if our first peoples are not able to live in pride and prosperity; if the benefits of growth are not more evenly shared in every part of this great country, and for that matter, every part of the world.

Fifty years ago, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador made a momentous decision to adopt Canada as their own and in so doing decided to take part in a federation of peoples and ideas that is a model to the world. And while the first 50 years have had their ups and downs, I am convinced it was the right decision.

No one can doubt for a moment that in agreeing to become part of Canada, Newfoundlanders have indeed retained their identity —  an identity that is celebrated across the country, an identity that Mary Pratt so eloquently described this morning.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next 50 years in Newfoundland and Labrador are for you and your children to create, and the possibilities are limited only by the boundaries of the mind and the imagination. Natural resources will continue to be a source of strength and comparative advantage, but I see ahead for Newfoundlanders other bright opportunities that the information age and technology can offer up. In such an age, distance and smallness become meaningless. What will matter most are education, creativity and the willingness to work hard. These are attributes that the people of this province already have and that I have no doubt will continue to build upon.

To all of you, I wish a happy 50th birthday and best wishes for a bright and prosperous future. I believe in that future. Together we can make it happen. God bless Newfoundland and Labrador. God bless Canada!