On January the 23rd Canadians voted for change and they asked our party to lead that change in the House of Commons. Today I’d like to provide you with an update on how our plans to deliver that change to Canadians are unfolding.
As you can imagine, much of my time in the last two days has been spent addressing a number of issues related to the change of government. I’ve both spoken and met with Her Excellency the Governor General and accepted her offer to form the next Government of Canada.
I’ve also spoken a number of times with the premiers and reiterated my sincere commitment to working with them to strengthening our federation. I’ve spoken with a number of leaders including President Fox and President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Howard. And I’ve received a number of briefings from senior public servants including the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Governor of the Bank of Canada whom I met today. These briefings will continue this week and next including the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Commissioner of the RCMP.
Over the days and weeks the process of change will accelerate. On Monday, February the 6th, Her Excellency the Governor General will swear in Canada’s new government. The new government will reflect the unity and diversity of our country. Our new government will act quickly to get down to work on delivering the change that Canadians voted for on January the 23rd. As you all know, we campaigned on a very clear set of priorities — priorities that will benefit working people and their families, priorities that will strengthen our country. And we’ll use our time in the new parliament to pursue those priorities.
Our first priority will be to clean up government, make it more open and more accountable to taxpayers. We will do this by way of the federal Accountability Act. Given that we expect the release of Judge Gomery’s second report and since every party ran on platforms that included accountability measures, I’m confident that we will find broad-based consensus to move forward on these changes and on this legislation.
Beyond the federal Accountability Act, we intend to move to implement our GST and other tax reductions, to toughen up our criminal justice system and to implement our child care program. We’ll also commence negotiations with the provinces on the fiscal imbalance and on the introduction of a patient wait times guarantee so that Canadians get the health care they’ve paid for.
During the campaign I found that there was a remarkable amount of multi-party consensus on many of the key priorities I just mentioned. We’ll look for shared goals and for common ideas. And, working together, we’ll seek to implement ideas that will help ordinary working people and that will strengthen our federation.
There will be difficult situations; minority governments are never easy. But all parties recognize that Canadians have chosen the second minority parliament in less than two years. They want us to get to work on delivering change and we will be ready to lead that change.
Before concluding, I’d also like to just acknowledge briefly that Chinese New Year begins this Sunday, January the 29th. Chinese Canadians are making an extraordinary impact on the building of our country. They’ve also made a significant historical contribution despite many obstacles. That’s why, as I said during the election campaign, the Chinese Canadian community deserves an apology for the head tax and appropriate acknowledgement and redress. On this occasion I’d just like to take the opportunity to wish all Canadians of Chinese descent a healthy and prosperous new year. Gung hay fat choy. And thank you.
