The answer – at least according the thousands who took part in online and Montreal for the Canada at 150 conference this past weekend – is a resounding "yes."
As we approach our 150th birthday as a country in 2017, we face some big challenges – challenges that call for a national conversation about the future.
Canadians took part in droves in an unprecedented exchange of bold ideas that was truly national in scope. 70 satellite events were held across the country. Over 20,000 people watched the live webcast from Montreal. Questions came in via Twitter and Skype, contributing to an open and honest discussion that crossed borders, both geographical and technological.
In Montreal, presenters like the former Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge put it starkly: an ageing population, rising health care costs, and slower economic growth require urgent and difficult choices.
In spite of the gloomy prognosis, Canada at 150 pointed the way to a more hopeful future – but only if we choose our priorities.
First, learning and innovation to support high quality jobs. We need a pan-Canadian approach to learning, from early childhood development and care, to adult literacy and language training, to helping families send their kids to higher education and training.
Second, social and economic security. We need a national approach to health promotion, to keep Canadians healthy and to ease the strain on our health care system. We need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with families who care for loved ones at home. And we need immediate measures to boost retirement savings like a supplementary Canada Pension Plan.
Third, restoring Canada's global leadership, beginning with the clean energy investments that will create the well-paying jobs we want for our kinds. We need to be better stewards of our environment, as we work to become the most energy-efficient society on the planet.
Learning and Innovation. Social and economic security. Canadian global leadership. These are big challenges – and unless we start working on them now, the Canada of 2017 will be a poorer, less equal country.
Everything I heard at Canada at 150 suggested that addressing these challenges will require a new kind of federal leadership.
Federal leadership should be about convening, not command and control. Ottawa needs to bring the country together in common purpose, and build networks of responsibilities that are focused on outcomes.
Instead, all the current government offers is cuts and reduced expectations, because they have no other plan to address the $54 billion deficit they created.
On Sunday, I made a different choice, by announcing that a Liberal government will freeze corporate tax rates.
Thanks to responsible tax cuts by Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, Canada's corporate tax rate is already globally competitive, and a 25 percent lower than in the United States.
This measure will free up billions of dollars to reduce the deficit, while also allowing us to make the necessary investments in learning, care, and global leadership we discussed last weekend in Montreal.
The current government plans to rush ahead with further corporate tax reductions, when ours are already competitive. We would defer those reductions until the country can afford them.
We've committed to a credible deficit reduction target, with reductions every year until the budget is balanced. We will build a fiscal cushion into our planning to make sure we meet fiscal targets. And we will commit to a policy of spending restraint, by proposing new platform investments only if we can show exactly where the money is coming from, without increasing the deficit.
Our approach allows us to balance the budget while making strategic, critical investments that will give Canadians the tools to build our future.
During Canada at 150, we focused on the future, and on the kind of Canada we want in 2017, when we celebrate our 150th birthday. Daunting challenges stand between us and that milestone. But if we act now, and act together, Canada will lead the world again. I am confident that we will.
Michael Ignatieff is Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Member of Parliament for Etobicoke Lakeshore.
James Morton
1100-5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
416 225 2777
www.jmortonmusings.blogspot.com
9 comments:
Bromides and bollocks! Don't eat that Charlie, that's horses__t.
The most important challenge that needs to be addressed now is to change the voting process. The Senate must be voted, the PM must be voted separately from the party and a process whereby, a formal procedure in which an elected official can be charged with an unlawful activity, and which may or may not lead to the removal of that official from office. If the PM is voted separately from the party, he/she would not be PM in waiting and would darn well have to earn their votes. There are far, far too many parties in this country all vying for a place in the sun. With a population of 33,000,000, more than two parties is not sustainable.
Oh I forgot...I have heard this over and over and over again. There isn't one new idea here.
The Senate must never be voted in. MPs are too terrified of losing their jobs to hold the government accountable. We don't need two chambers bending over to the Prime Minister's every whim just to avoid a confrontation.
Ignatieff is publishing letters to the editor again. Must mean he is off to Bermuda or London or France.
When most MPs use the parliamentary break to work gruelling long hours in their constituencies Ignatieff considers it a "holiday" according to his complaints during the prorogation.
Maybe Canada Tourism could send him some brochures with some wonderful holiday ideas in his current "home and native land".
Why do all the brave new ideas cost so damn much of my money? And why do I, an employed, white male, in the middle class get so very little from that? We know medicare is crashing, the public pension plan is doomed, and we have a massive demographics issue to deal with. Where are the brave new ideas to deal with that? Or maybe what we need is to ditch some of the brave new ideas that Trudeau and Pearson brought in. For example, why is it the given wisdom that our elderly need to be housed in government run homes and paid government pensions to live independently? What ever happened to the idea that family cares for family? How about a policy that encourage family to do that? I know, I know, that helps us middle class white guys more than poor drug addicts, single moms, visible minorities, and gays, but it would be "brave".
Or maybe we could look at encouraging families to have kids again? Our fertility rate is in the toilet. If we could encourage families to have just 1 extra kid, 2 replacements and a spare, they could support their parents easily enough. Instead of counting on immigrants without family support structures we could support ourselves. And that's not to say immigration is bad, but I don't think we can count on taking the best and brightest of the developing world as a long term solution to a homegrown problem.
Now for some actual ideas to help:
- Income splitting for one. And maybe allow retired parents living with their children to income split as well.
- Real tax benefits for having children. If you invest in a child you shouldn't have to finance the lifestyle of those who don't. And by lifestyle I mean government supported retirement plans.
- A Quebec inspired user pay system in medicare. Not burdensome I would hope, but certainly a barrier to the idea that health care is "free".
"For example, why is it the given wisdom that our elderly need to be housed in government run homes and paid government pensions to live independently? What ever happened to the idea that family cares for family?" Yes huh!! What ever happened to that idea??????? Our elderly have raised children who are law abiding and working citizens whose children have forgotten who they are. The present elderly who are not baby boomers by the way, have earned the right to be taken care of above the proverty level. How many elderly as you put it, do you know....they would be above the age of 65....have a university education, or other training. The elderly you speak about were mostly stay at home mothers whose husbands are now mostly deceased. What about those women who were left for a younger woman. I wonder just how much you are prepared to take care of your parents providing a decent living? Do you know how many reccessions there have been in this country since 1970....? Count them and if you think that doesn't have something to do with being able to save money for old age...you better think again. This country has NOT and is NOT taking care of its elderly who deserve respect and a decent life style. The government can find all kinds of money for Hati and other countries but its citizenry complain about the elderly...go bury your head.
"Elected senate? Be careful what you wish for. Look at the US - pork and bribery. The US hasn't had elected senators all that long in the US and some are now wondering if it was such a good idea."
What makes you think an elected senate has to be anything like the US. Take a good look at Australia. Another mind deeply entrenched in a tunnel.
... if you think that doesn't have something to do with being able to save money for old age...you better think again. This country has NOT and is NOT taking care of its elderly who deserve respect and a decent life style. The government can find all kinds of money for Hati and other countries but its citizenry complain about the elderly...go bury your head.
My point, Anyong, is that it is neither my parents responsibility nor the government's to save money for retirement. My parent's have a responsibility to raise children, not in small part to assure their retirement. Those that can't have children can adopt (my wife and I have adopted) or invest the money they would otherwise have spent on children into a retirement fund. There is no need for the government to get involved in a UNIVERSAL pension plan. There may be a place for taking care of the indigent, those with the misfortune of losing their children, and other truly needy, but certainly not everybody. When The very rich get Canada pensions, or when those in jail for life get pensions, we should see universality is not supportable. It is a family's responsibility to care for their own elderly family members. The pension plan is government forcing us to pay money for our parents, the problem is the parents of today aren't having enough children to "pay" for their retirement. Parents should be able to expect that when they are too old, or too poor to care for themselves they have a place to stay with their children. We must encourage that at both ends, with encouragement to have a sustainable number of children and encouraging those children to care for their elderly parents.
Me, I have two parents over 65, one closer to 80, an my wife has one at 73 and one a lot younger but ill. We WILL take care of our family when the time comes. That is without any government encouragement. Imagine how many more might if the government allowed us to keep our money to take care of our own instead of promising to do it for us.
We have a real problem in Canada and, to quote the immortal Homer Simpson, it is the constant whine of: "Can't someone else do it?"
Post a Comment