Wednesday, October 4, 1995
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA
Wednesday, October 4, 1995
The House met at 11 a.m.
Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms (Garry Clark): His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Dumont.
Their Excellencies the Governor General and Mrs. LeBlanc.
Madam Speaker: Your Excellency, it is a great pleasure on behalf of all members of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba to welcome you on this your first official visit to our province.
C'est un très grand plaisir pour nous de vous souhaiter la bienvenue dans notre Assemblée législative.
[Translation]
It is a very great pleasure for us to welcome you to our Legislative Assembly.
[English]
May we congratulate you and indeed express our sincere pleasure on your appointment to your high office. May we also congratulate you on being the first person of Acadian heritage to be appointed to your office.
May we reaffirm through you the allegiance of all members of the Legislative Assembly to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and our unfailing loyalty and deep affection.
We of the keystone province, which is an important link between Canada's east and west, are a people from many lands. The many and diverse contributions have expanded the breadth and dimension of our culture and heritage.
This year is the 125th anniversary of the establishment of our province and we are delighted that Your Excellencies have chosen to be with us to participate in events associated with this occasion.
Your Excellencies, I am honoured and most pleased to welcome you to Manitoba.
Bienvenue au Manitoba.
[Translation]
Welcome to Manitoba.
His Excellency Mr. LeBlanc: Madam Speaker, the Premier, Leader of the Opposition, members of the provincial Legislature.
I was once Speaker of the Senate and I discovered that I had inherited one of the worst chairs of the country, not in terms of work, in terms of physical comfort. If I were to go back to the Senate, Madam Speaker, I might come and claim yours; it is very comfortable.
Of course, speaking in front of a provincial Legislature is a privilege which I had not enjoyed in my previous career, but I do not want to discuss that since I have gone through the exorcism of any political views or any political belonging. Of course, it is like hockey players; it is when they retire that they have time to discuss their careers.
Thank you very much for your reception. I know you are in your session in legislation. I also want to tell you that I would have come to visit Manitoba earlier, as I would have gone to visit Saskatchewan earlier, or I have not visited B.C. yet, it is just that provincial Premiers have this odd habit of calling elections. Therefore, the planning is always very, very difficult.
But, very seriously, I am honoured to be in your midst and I apologize if I asked for a lectern because I find that it is much easier to get enthusiasm fired up if you are speaking not from a sitting position. In fact, I should tell you that I asked Her Majesty, when we paid our courtesy visit, what the tradition of sitting down for the Speech from the Throne--where it had come from. She said, it is very simple to explain; when you wear a crown about 17 pounds, you enjoy sitting down. So, Your Honour, I rejoice with you that no one has thought that we should wear crowns even if we do represent the Crown.
* (1105)
In your 125th year as a province, on behalf of all Canadians, I salute the lawmakers and the people of Manitoba.
Au nom du Canada, je salue les élus de cette assemblée, ainsi que les citoyens de cette province.
[Translation]
On behalf of Canada, I salute the lawmakers and the people of Manitoba.
[English]
You are a province of long history, hard work and rich culture. You have been the crossroads of settlements and commerce, and you have also been the political and social centrepoint where conflicting currents have met and over time you have found a common course.
Today, some foreign observers often call Canada the best country of the world. In this year of your anniversary, perhaps as Manitobans and Canadians we could look back and ask, how did we come so far and where do we go from here? Forgive me if I reach a little way back because we Acadians tend to think in historical terms.
Some four centuries ago, almost four centuries, French-speaking settlers in Nova Scotia, my ancestors, established a colony and they prepared to farm land. They were not just using it as a departure base. They cleared the marshes of salt and reclaimed them and then they established a school. Cardinal Richelieu of France funded the school on one condition, that it should also open its doors to the aboriginals who had welcomed the French settlers.
How different would our history be if we had kept doors fully open to one another as we try to do today? Acadians had a difficult history, but we found a home in Canada. The Prairies, too, had their problems. Aboriginals, settlers from many lands, Metis and fur traders had to contend against winter, floods, droughts and plagues of insects but like the Acadians, at times they also had to contend with the old quarrels inherited from Europe.
With the Metis Louis Riel it seemed for a time that the French and English streams of western history would join smoothly at the forks of the Red and the Assiniboine. Unfortunately, the province that took its name from God became a hotbed of ancient antagonisms. Indeed, by the Second World War, Francophones in almost every province outside Quebec had lost in whole or in part the chance to learn their own language. There were competing visions of the future. Sir Clifford Sifton of Manitoba had one great vision of Canada's growth, but it was as if this province and this country were both too small for a Riel and a Sifton together.
* (1110)
Well, that was then, but Canada has changed. Next year will mark the hundredth anniversary of Sifton's and Sir Wilfrid Laurier's immigration policy. Old quarrels seem to shrink away as a giant stream of immigrants face the greater challenges of a new land and a new life. People found the place to be themselves, but they also found that they needed their neighbours. Manitoba and the West broadened Canada's view, both of the problems and of the solutions. The Winnipeg General Strike sounded an alarm across the country.
In the following years, by uniting to defend their interests, westerners and their political leaders wrote much of Canada's agenda for change and for the better in this century. You helped win recognition for regions and for resources and industries. You showed the concern for co-operation and for the ordinary citizen which underlies much of our social safety net, and here at the border line of the Canadian Shield you understand that the real shield is the shelter we give to one another.
If the land taught Canadians something, so did the Second World War. Many old divisions seemed less important in the united battle in which so many of your fellow Manitobans died. The loss of 42,000 young and brave soldiers convinced the whole country that war demands too high a price. We joined alliances to defend ourselves, but we also accepted to serve as the first peacekeepers of the United Nations.
Two weeks ago, I decorated soldiers who had served in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, not only for their military contribution but also for giving care and shelter to refugees far beyond their call to duty.
Depuis la guerre, la presse électronique a aidé les Canadiens à se voir et à s'entendre; et les progrès en éducation dans les provinces nous ont aidés à nous comprendre nous-mêmes. Je voudrais croire que le pays a grandi en sagesse. Et nous avons donné une dimension nouvelle aux concepts de la diversité et de la civilité.
La reconnaissance des droits des francophones à la gestion de leurs écoles au Manitoba a représenté un pas important dans la bonne direction. Et ce n'est pas seulement la Charte des droits et libertés qui a fait renaître les écoles françaises; c'est la charte invisible de bonne volonté que les Canadiens ont instituée avec le temps. Les parents et les politiciens se sont rendu compte qu'une seconde langue est une seconde lumière sur le monde. Et au Manitoba, vos hommes politiques de plusieurs gouvernements ont ouvert la porte aux jeunes de langue française.
[Translation]
Since the war, the electronic media have helped Canadians to see and hear one another, and educational advances in the provinces have helped us understand each other. I like to think we have become a wise nation. And we have carried the concepts of diversity and civility across a new frontier.
* (1115)
One positive step has been the recognition of the rights of Francophones in Manitoba to govern their own schools. It was not just the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that restored Francophone schools; it was also the invisible charter of good will that Canadians gradually developed. Parents and politicians realized that a second language is a second light upon the world. In Manitoba, your successive governments opened the door to education for young Francophones.
[English]
The Canadian house has many cultures and many rooms. The roof, in fact, covers half a continent, and at the peak we have a northern light to welcome the world. Multiculturalism and diversity have become emblems of Canadian pride, and in that progress Manitoba has been a leader and a teacher.
Here you have understood that I can be an Acadian and a New Brunswicker and yet be a Canadian above all, because Canada is the widest circle.
Within that circle, like the Manitoba Plaza that we will dedicate this morning, Canada has a central fountain: the principles of tolerance, of compassion, of generosity, of freedom and of diversity. This keystone province understands those central principles. By your example, you have helped Canada to outgrow old quarrels and to create a new model for the world.
I want to speak a somewhat rare word in praise of politicians, in particular, provincial politicians. Canada, as you well know, is perhaps the most decentralized country in the world. Provinces do hold enormous powers. From time to time some members of the public view provinces as bickering with each other or with the federal government, but our national machinery somewhat reminds me of the complicated threshers and combines on the Prairies. They seem to be flying in all directions and yet they are moving ahead.
However we got here, we have arrived at a certain Canadian consensus. Maybe no one has fully defined the Canadian idea, yet we all sense the value of compromise, of civility, of generosity, of taking care of our business but also of taking care of each other. No one pretends that Canada is perfect. No one is more aware of that fact than our First Nations and poverty remains at unacceptable levels, as this very House has recognized. We Canadians keep trying, and when we look around, where in fact is the better country? I asked myself how we had come from so far and I mentioned many forces: the land itself, the lesson of war, education, immigration and the mixture of cultures and language. I hesitate to try to give a final answer except possibly for good will and some good luck, but where do we go from here besides praying for more good luck. We can all practise good will as Manitoba has done.
Votre province généreuse a démontré que la diversité fait la force, comme les nouvelles sortes de blé.
(Translation)
Your generous province has demonstrated that diversity creates strength, like new strains of wheat.
[English]
Your province and our country have gotten rid of old quarrels but fulfilled old visions. Both Clifford Sifton's vision of growth and vigour and Louis Riel's vision of equality, after all the heartaches of the past, today, a Metis Lieutenant-Governor and an Acadian Governor General can shake hands in this Chamber and perhaps so can the ghost of Riel and Sifton.
Today, this province and this country are big enough to hold both of these great figures of our complex history and our country is large enough to permit all of us to be proud of their achievements today.
Madam Speaker, thank you for your hospitality.