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Winnipeg, Manitoba

Bonsoir, mes amis Libéraux!

I want to thank Anita Neville, who’s the hardest-working Liberal MP in Manitoba.

Anita, we’re going to give you some colleagues in the next election!

You will not find anyone who works harder on behalf of the women of Canada.

Anita was central to putting together The Pink Book, our action plan for Canadian women, which we released last month.

And last month, with Anita’s support, I had the privilege of tabling in the House of Commons my own Private Member’s Bill on pay equity.

Because the Liberal Party of Canada will always stand for a human right to equal pay for work of equal value.

It’s good to be back in Manitoba. We’ve got a superb team here, and I want to recognize our election readiness team and the leadership of LPC(M) in keeping us strong in this province.

I was in Fredericton last week. I’ll be in Whistler this weekend. Family gatherings, like this one.

Families level with each other. I’ll level with you. It’s tough times. We’ve been knocked around a bit. As the guy who’s proud to be your Leader, I take responsibility for that.

But this was never going to be easy. And it has never been more important to fight for what this party believes—for the Canada we believe in.

In times of challenge, in times of change, in times of turmoil, Canadians turn to the Liberal Party—and we will not fail to be the party of hope for all Canadians.

Nous sommes ici ce soir parce que nous aimons ce pays. Parce que nous sommes fiers de ce parti. Et parce que nous savons que ce parti c’est l’avenir du Manitoba, et l’avenir du Canada.

Our task is to offer a vision of a strong and united future, at a time when our future seems uncertain. When we’re going through not just a recession, but a restructuring of the entire global economy.

Canada has to find its place in a new world—where fossil fuels are expensive, carbon has a price, brain power and intellectual property drive our economy, and growth markets are in China and India, not just the United States.

Canadians are ready to take on this new world. We’re excited for the challenge. Look at the biotech, medical, aerospace, and agri-food innovation clusters here in Winnipeg.

Look at the work that’s being done at the University of Manitoba—mapping the H1N1 virus, fighting HIV/AIDS, and leading the world’s largest climate change research project in the Canadian Arctic.

And let’s remember who brought the Public Health Agency of Canada to Winnipeg—it was our own Reg Alcock, who’s here this evening.

At the University of Winnipeg, they’re preparing more young people—especially Aboriginal youth—for the jobs of tomorrow, with new programs and new opportunities, under the leadership of Lloyd Axworthy, who’s with us tonight.

Tomorrow I’ll be up in Thompson, at the University College of the North. They’re giving more Aboriginal Canadians a shot at post-secondary education and a better future.

And that needs to be part of our strategy for building this country. We’ve got to lift the cap on Aboriginal education. We’ve got to invest in the opportunities of tomorrow for all Canadians.

Because it is an article of faith for this party that no one gets left behind—no Aboriginal Canadian, no new Canadian, no Canadian with disabilities, no one.

And we are so proud to have, as our candidate in Churchill, Sydney Garrioch, who’s been such a leader in that community for so many years.

Manitobans are ready. Canadians are ready. But we’re looking for leadership. And we need a government that’s smart enough—that cares enough—to invest in Canadians, to create the jobs of tomorrow, to secure a future of opportunity for our kids. Here in Canada. Here in Manitoba.

And we’re here tonight because this family believes the government we need is a Liberal government.

Canadians are a competent, creative, compassionate, and courageous people. And we need a government that is every bit as competent, creative, compassionate, and courageous as we are. We deserve nothing less.

Instead, we have Stephen Harper. He doesn’t believe in government at all. That’s a big difference. Oh, he likes power, all right. He likes politics. I’m twelve feet away from him all day. Feel for me. Feel my pain.

But he doesn’t believe in government. He doesn’t believe in the positive power of government. The power of government to build a stronger Canada. We do.

Harper’s been in power for four years, and you know what he’ll be remembered for? His lasting legacy? His attack ads. The 24-hour non-stop politics of spite. Canadians deserve better. And we will give them better.

Look, I’m no angel. I will attack Stephen Harper. But I’ll stick to his record—heaven knows I’ve got enough to work with.

Start with the stimulus.

We’re in the worst recession in decades, and what do we get from Stephen Harper? Doorknobs. I’m not talking about his Cabinet. I’m talking about actual doorknobs.

They’re doing routine maintenance on government buildings, replacing doorknobs, and putting up big blue signs. And handing out giant cheques with Conservative logos.

In St. Boniface, Shelly Glover is putting the Conservative logo on water bottles and trying to give them out to kids. What is wrong with these people?

Ray Simard’s been trying to figure it out.

Ray fait un excellent travail pour dénoncer cette ridicule propagande par Shelly Glover.

Il mérite nos applaudissements.

Mais le problème est bien plus grave que les étiquettes de ces bouteilles d’eau.

The Conservatives let partisan politics get in the way of public health. They spent something like ten times more on promoting their Re-Election Action Plan than on H1N1 awareness.

This is unworthy of the Canadian people. We deserve better.

They’ve played politics with public money. They’ve played politics with public health. They’ve even played politics with the Olympic torch, which just happens to go through some ungodly number of Conservative ridings.

They apparently don’t expect us to notice this stuff. But Canadians are smarter than that. And if the best Stephen Harper can do is replace doorknobs and call it stimulus, we’re going to change the locks.

Harper’s cheap politics aren’t cheap at all. He’s still spending more than any government in Canadian history.

They inherited a thirteen billion dollar surplus in 2006. Remember that? Canadians worked hard for a decade, and Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin led us to the best public finances in the G-8. We were proud then and we’re proud now.

Now the deficit’s gone from zero to 32 billion, then 50, and now 56 billion in half-a-year—and a million-and-a-half Canadians are still out of work.

With Stephen Harper, you get half the leadership at twice the price.

Liberals accept the necessity of deficit spending during a recession. But running a deficit means borrowing from our kids. And we think that if you’re going to borrow billions from our kids, you’d better have a darn good reason.

Conservative party favours aren’t good enough. After four years, this government is all cheques—and no balance.

Ask yourself: what, really, has Harper achieved in four years? He walks around pretending to be a man with principles and priorities. But there isn’t a promise he won’t break to stay in power.

Promised not to tax income trusts—and he did. Promised not to raise payroll taxes—and he did. Promised not to appoint senators—and he did. 27 of them. In a single year. That’s a record folks. It’s Stephen Harper’s record—and he can keep it.

People ask us what we’d do differently. Our plan is clear:

Fight for new markets.

Create clean energy jobs.

Stand up for Canadian technologies.

Secure healthcare and pensions.

And invest in learning so that every child, every new Canadian, every Aboriginal Canadian gets a fair shot at life—no matter where in the country they live.

That’s our Canada. That’s our vision of positive government. That’s what we’re fighting for.

Le monde n’a pas arrêté de tourner dans les quatre dernières années. Les autres pays préparent l’avenir. Ils investissent aujourd’hui pour créer les emplois de demain. Ils investissent pour développer le savoir et le savoir-faire de leurs citoyens.

Other countries aren’t standing still. But Stephen Harper is. Our future—our kids’ future—is slipping away.

And it doesn’t need to be that way. Canadians don’t want it to be that way. And Liberals won’t let it be that way.

D’abord, nous créerions des milliers d’emplois en investissant dans l’énergie propre. C’est la plus grande occasion de création de richesse depuis l’invention d’internet.

In the U.S., President Obama is putting six times more per capita into clean energy and research than the Conservatives. Right now, Canada is investing less in renewables per capita than the State of Alaska.

So when it comes to clean energy, Stephen Harper isn’t just behind Barack Obama. He’s behind Sarah Palin.

On the environment, Canadians are miles ahead of the Conservative government.

Lloyd Axworthy and Terry Duguid wrote the Climate Change Action Plan for Gary Doer. That was in 2001. Now it’s 2009, and the Conservatives are nowhere to be found.

They’re certainly not to be found in Lake Winnipeg. Or anywhere near Lake Winnipeg.

They’ve abandoned their responsibility to protect our natural heritage—our lakes and river systems and watersheds. We need federal leadership. And Liberals are ready to provide it.

Or how about the digital economy?

Il y a dix ans, nous avions le meilleur programme au monde de développement des services en ligne.

In 1997, we were the first country in the world to connect all our schools to the internet.

Now we rank twenty-eighth out of thirty major economies in terms of broadband internet speed and cost. Twenty-eighth. Only Mexico and Poland are worse.

Rural and remote communities need connectivity. We’ve got to hook up all of Canada—so we can build opportunity in every region of the country. And if Stephen Harper won’t do it, we will.

Harper’s also taking us in the wrong direction on crime. He’s taking us due South, to a justice system that talks tough but acts dumb—that thinks long sentences alone will keep our communities safe.

They tried that approach in the United States They’ve put two-and-a-half million Americans behind bars—more than twice the population of Manitoba—and it didn’t work.

We’ve supported tougher sentences—in government and in opposition. But we also need to give young people something to be part of, something to belong to that isn’t a gang, somewhere to go that isn’t the street.

We need to tell young people that if you break the law we will punish you—but we will do everything in our power to prevent crime in the first place.

And that does not make us soft on crime. We’re the party that took on child predators in the 1990s. We tackled organized crime and modernised youth criminal justice. That’s our record, and we’re proud of it.

Nous sommes fiers aujourd’hui de faire équipe avec nos policiers en faveur du contrôle des armes à feu.

Soyons clairs : nous voulons un registre des armes à feu pratique et efficace.

This Party supports a smart, effective gun control registry. Police officers check it nine thousand times a day—and it costs less in a year than the Conservatives have spent on their partisan advertisements in the last few months.

And if you register your car, and you register your mortgage, and you register your dog, for heaven’s sake, you should register your gun, too.

We will make the registry work for all Canadians. We will work with rural Canadians to make it better. But we will not abandon our police officers, we will not abandon gun control, and we will not kill the gun control registry.

Stephen Harper’s agenda is no secret. He wants our federal government to be a bystander, not a nation-builder. He wants to build prisons, not day care spaces. He wants our voice in the world to be an echo.

Stephen Harper veut décider quels Canadiens méritent d’être traités comme des Canadiens. Nous, nous disons : un Canadien c’est un Canadien c’est un Canadien.

Liberals don’t want big government, but we do want good government. A national government that builds our country and brings us together in common cause.

We Liberals believe in government as nation-building, and we have the record to prove it: Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, official bilingualism and multiculturalism, and the best public finances in the world. We summoned up the best in Canadians and together we built the country we love—and we won’t let Harper take it apart!

That’s why I knocked on doors for Mike Pearson. That’s why I organized for Mr. Trudeau.

Nous étions le parti du futur lorsque Jean Chrétien et Paul Martin ont relancé notre économie. Et nous sommes toujours ce parti du futur.

Je suis en politique pour les mêmes raisons que vous : pour renouveler une grande tradition, pour defender les valeurs libérales, et pour donner à ce pays ses meilleurs jours.

We are a serious people. You ask us to do something difficult, we will never let you down. Our diplomats, soldiers, aid workers make us proud—but they need a government that believes in them, to take the Canadian story, the Canadian example, to the world.

We need to give life to that sense we have as Canadians—that being a citizen of Canada makes you a citizen of the world. I learned as a reporter in the 90s—in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Afghanistan—that even in the horror of war, Canada is a beacon of hope.

In 2017, we have a rendezvous with our destiny. The 150th anniversary of our federation. Now is the time to build the Canada we want to celebrate. The best educated, the greenest, the healthiest and the most international society on earth.

All we need to get there is compassionate, far-sighted, visionary government—the kind of leadership we know Liberals can provide. And together, we will.

Thank you. Merci.

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