To adapt a sentiment from the great American president Franklin D. Roosevelt: never before in this country have the forces of negativity, cynicism, and fear been so united in their hostility toward one candidate.
The Conservative Party will now do what it does. It will try to spread fear. It will sow cynicism. It will attempt to convince Canadians that we should be satisfied with what we have now.
For at the heart of their unambitious agenda is the idea that “better” is just not possible. That to hope for something more from our politics and our leaders—more humanity, more transparency, more compassion—is naive, and inevitably will lead to disappointment. And they will promote that divisive and destructive idea with passionate intensity. They will do so for a simple reason: they are afraid.
But—and I want to make this perfectly clear—my fellow Canadians, it is not my leadership that Mr. Harper and his party fear.
It’s yours.
There is nothing that these Conservatives fear more than an engaged and informed Canadian citizen.
My friends, if I have learned one thing in this life, it’s that our country is blessed with countless numbers of activist citizens, from all walks of life, and of all political views. They have come out by the thousands over the course of this campaign.
They’ve gathered by the hundreds in places like Ponoka, Alberta, and Oliver, B.C., Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and Île-des-Chênes, Manitoba. Canadians who thought they were sending community leaders to be their voice in Ottawa, but instead got only Mr. Harper’s voice back in their communities.
We’ve seen their hopeful faces in crowds of Canadians gathered in Windsor and Whitby, Mississauga and Markham. Middle-class Canadians who are putting much into the economy and getting too little in return.
We’ve seen hard-working Atlantic Canadians from Edmundston to Halifax, from Summerside to St. John’s, who have decided that this is a government that does not share their values. (To my friends in Labrador, I look forward to seeing you very soon.)
We’ve met young Aboriginal leaders from all across this country, from Tk’emlups to Whapmagoostui, who are simply tired of being forced to the margins of this country. With the courage to walk sixteen hundred kilometres through a Canadian winter to make the point that they will be Idle No More.
Francophones who live in Shediac, Sudbury, Saint Boniface, and all across this country who want their children to live and thrive in French, your determination inspires me; it must inspire the entire country.
Quebecers, from Gatineau to Gaspé, who want to re-engage with this country. With their country. Who have no time for the divisive issues of their parents’ past, but want to work with Canadians who share their values to build a better country for all our kids.
I want to take a moment to speak directly to my fellow Quebecers.
Your engagement and your support in recent months has been deeply moving. I have learned so much from our conversations and our meetings. I take nothing for granted. I understand that trust can only be earned. And my plan is to earn yours.
I feel confident about the future. I want to share with you why Quebecers have always been builders. From Champlain and Laurier to today, they have actively participated in shaping our country, together with so many other Canadians.
Our work is not complete. We face enormous challenges. Helping the middle class make ends meet. Reconciling economic growth and environmental stewardship. Playing a positive and meaningful role in the world. To rise above these challenges we must demonstrate our audacity and ambition, my friends. Audacity and ambition, always.
Let’s be honest. We will not convince everyone. There will always be skeptics. People who say that our country is too big and too full of differences to be effectively managed, or for everyone to be represented. They are wrong, my friends.
I am not claiming that it will always be easy. That there will not be any obstacles along the way. That we will not have to make some compromises.
Canada is a grand, yet unfinished project. And it is up to us, together with all Canadians, to build the country that we want. The time has come for us to write a new chapter in the history of our country.
Let’s leave to others the old quarrels and old debates that lead nowhere. Let’s leave to others the ultra-partisan rhetoric and the old ways of doing politics. Let’s leave the personal attacks to them.
Quebecers, let us be, together, once again, builders of Canada. So that our country can match the height of the dreams and ambitions that are shared across this country. So that we can leave our children a better world than the one that we inherited from our parents.
My friends, the Liberal Party will regain the confidence of Canadians when it proves that it is here to serve them. This is the task at hand. This is what will guide me as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
To the new generation of Canadians and to all the young people who are not engaged by politics, I have a very simple message for you: your country needs you. It needs your energy and your passion. It needs your idealism and your ideas.
The movement we are have been building over the past six months, it is yours. It belongs to you. It is the movement with which we will change politics. It is the movement that will allow us to reform our political institutions, to make reconciling the environment and our economy a real priority, and to play a positive and constructive role in the world.
My fellow Liberals, Canadians are looking to us. This campaign has been their campaign, more than just ours.
They want something better. They refuse to believe that better is not possible. They see the country their parents and grandparents worked so hard to build, and want to hand an even better country to their children.
Canadians share deep values that cannot be shaken, no matter how hard the Conservative Party may try. Optimism. Openness. Compassion. Service to community. Generosity of spirit.
We want to believe that change can happen. We want leadership that will shape our best instincts into an even better country.
But Canadians will not suffer fools gladly. Canadians turned away from us because we turned away from them. Because Liberals became more focused on fighting with each other than fighting for Canadians.
Well, I don’t care if you thought my father was great or arrogant. It doesn’t matter to me if you were a Chrétien-Liberal, a Turner-Liberal, a Martin-Liberal, or any other kind of Liberal. The era of hyphenated Liberals ends right here, tonight.
From this day forward, we welcome all Liberals as Canadian Liberals. United in our dedication to serve and lead Canadians. Unity not just for unity’s sake, but unity of purpose.
I say this to the millions of middle-class Canadians, and the millions more who work hard every day to join the middle class: under my leadership, the purpose of the Liberal Party of Canada will be you. I promise that I will begin, spend, and end every day thinking about and working hard to solve your problems.
I know that you are optimistic about us, but cautiously so. You are, after all, Canadians. You know that hope is a fine thing, but that without an equal measure of hard work to back it up, it will be fleeting. So I know that you will judge us by the tenacity of our work ethic, the integrity of our efforts, and, come 2015, the clarity of our plan to make our country better. That is as it should be.
I know how lucky I have been in my life. Lucky, most of all, to have learned so much from so many Canadians. To learn that, above all else in this country, leadership means service.
I love this country, my friends, and I believe in it deeply. It deserves better leadership than it has now.
So let us be clear-eyed about what we have accomplished. We have worked hard and we have had a great campaign. We are united, hopeful, and resolute in our purpose.
But know this: we have won nothing more and nothing less than the opportunity to work even harder. Work even harder to prove ourselves worthy of leadi
ng this great country.
We should be deeply, deeply grateful for that opportunity. As your leader, I fully intend to make sure we make the most of it.
Change can happen. Canadians want leadership that will work with them to make it happen.
Be hopeful, my fellow Liberals. Work hard. Stay focused on Canadians. We can lead the change so many people want.
A better Canada is always possible. Together, we will build it.
Thank you.
Speech delivered at the 11th Annual
Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention
Toronto, December 22, 2012
As-salamu alaykum.
I am here today because I believe in freedom of expression.
I am here today because I believe in freedom of peaceful assembly.
I am here today because I believe in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees those sacred things to you, to me, and to all people with whom we share this land.
But mostly, I am here today because I believe in you. I believe in the contributions you have made to our country. And I know that together we will make even greater contributions in the future.
Let me begin with a story. A story from your history. One that I hope will stay in your minds as you think about our common future.
Many generations ago, a young man was confronted by traditional religious elders. The kind of folks that today we might call fundamentalists or even extremists.
You see, a centuries-old conflict was raging. Prominent people on each side were convinced of their rightness, and loudly proclaimed that the other side was not only wrong, but wrong because of their religious beliefs, their culture, and their identity.
And as is far too often the case, these leaders reserved special scorn for those within their ranks who sought common ground with others. They understood the threat that moderation and compromise present to those who preach rigid doctrine.
This young man was struggling at the time. He was just starting out in the world. He was facing many of the same issues that, I suspect, you are facing today. How do I remain true to my values, to my culture, while I serve the interests of the society to which I belong?
He knew who he was, and what he believed. He was proud of his heritage, his culture, his religion. But he parted ways, decisively, with those within his community who would use these things to build walls.
But then, he was granted a remarkable opportunity, to address a distinguished audience of political, religious, and business leaders.
And so he challenged them to think beyond the narrow confines of the present and to look toward the future. He said, “Providence has united together on this corner of earth populations of different origins and creeds. Is it not manifest that these populations must have together common and identical interests?”
That young man is a very important part of your history, as I said. But he would not go on to become an imam, a holy man, or a caliph.
He would, however, go on to become, among many more important things, my second-favourite prime minister.
The year was 1877. The place was Quebec City. And the brave young man’s name was Wilfrid Laurier. He was thirty-five years old, with barely three years of service in Parliament to recommend him. And he had made a difficult choice.
Rather than fall in line with his elders and marshal his already prodigious talents in exclusive service of what he called his race, he chose an improbable new path. One that honoured what was good and noble about his own culture, yes. But one that used those very things to serve a higher purpose: to find common ground between people of differing beliefs.
Laurier saw something clearly, perhaps more clearly than any other Canadian: he saw that here, in this place, a new idea was taking shape. A new way of living together just might be possible.
He knew that his was a country founded and built by people who had warred against one another for centuries on their home continent: English versus French, Catholic versus Protestant. Early on, these murderous conflicts crossed the Atlantic Ocean with them.
But then a unique thing happened. Despite the fact that the English were victorious on the battlefield, the same measure of freedom was gained by each side.
In one of the most moving passages of that speech, speaking about the obelisk on the Plains of Abraham, Laurier said: “In what other country, under the sun, can you find a similar monument reared to the memory of the conquered as well as of the conqueror? In what other country, under the sun, will you find the names of the conquered and the conqueror equally honoured and occupying the same place in respect of the population?. . . Where is the Canadian who, comparing his country with even the freest countries, would not feel proud of the institutions which protect him?”
Now, the point of this story is not that remarkable moment in our history. The point is everything that has happened since.
This is our inheritance. One that has been renewed by successive generations to this very day.
That two peoples who had been enemies came together to build institutions—and a Constitution—that guaranteed freedom not only for one another but for all who would come after them.
They were joined in this great project over the years by people of every conceivable culture, religion, and ethnicity. Waves and waves of young men and women who chose to emphasize what was kind-hearted about their own traditions. Free people who chose to use the generosity of spirit that is the root of all faith to find common ground with those whose beliefs differed from their own.
As it is written in the Holy Qur’an: “The true servants of the Most Merciful are those who behave gently and with humility on earth, and whenever the foolish quarrel with them, they reply with [words of] peace” (Al-Furqan 25:63).
It has never been easy. This road has never been smooth or straight. Generations of Canadians had to overcome deep differences. They made a deliberate choice to turn their backs on rancour and conflict.
But today, because of them, we are all blessed to live in the most diverse country in the history of the world. One of the most peaceful and most prosperous.
One that has now moved beyond the goal of mere tolerance. Because saying “I tolerate you” is to grudgingly allow you to breathe the same air, to walk the same earth. And while there are many places in the world where tolerance is still just a far-off dream, in Canada we are beyond that. So let us not use the word tolerance. Let us speak instead of acceptance, understanding, respect, and friendship.
Here, we have come to a new realization, together: that a country can be great not in spite of its diversity, but because of its diversity.
This is our story now, yours and mine. The story of our country, Canada.
So as you reflect this weekend about the future, take heart. Know that the struggles we are facing have been faced down before. Know that the conflicting feelings in our hearts have been felt before. Know that compromise and moderation are not the path of weakness but of courage and strength. That there is always a positive path in this country for all who seek common ground.
Most important, remember this: our inheritance must be constantly renewed by those who share Laurier’s vision.
When people come together to create opportunities for one another, the dreams we hold in common will crowd out the fears that would divide us.
For it is not the political class but the middle class that unites this country. Open to all, our broad and diverse middle class is Canada’s centre of gravity. Good people. People with common hopes and common challenges, coming together to find common ground.
There are already too many forces in the world that drive us into separate camps, that isolate us, and make us suspicious of one another.
Yesterday, protesters tried to prevent me from speaking at a school because of my stance defending gay marriage and women’s rights. And as you know, some conservatives tried to stir up controversy a
bout my appearance here today. They tried to appeal to people’s fears and prejudices, the very things that this gathering was founded to overcome.
Now, I respect and defend their right to express their opinions. But I want you to know that I will always stand up to the politics of division and fear. It is short-sighted to pit groups of Canadians against one another. It may make some feel good for a little while, or even work politically in the short term.
But it is no way to build a country. Least of all this country. It is not who we are.
We are here today to do what we Canadians have been doing together for generations. We are honouring our diversity through friendship and understanding, so that we can build from it a common, positive future.
So I join you in your commitment to that more hopeful future. Let us pledge ourselves to building a country that brings people together; that finds the highest virtue in compromise, moderation, and common ground.
Nearly thirty years after that first speech, then in his third term as our prime minister, Laurier put it this way to an audience in Edmonton.
“We do not want or wish that any individual should forget the land of his origin. Let them look to the past, but let them still more look to the future. Let them look to the land of their ancestors, but let them look also to the land of their children. Let them become Canadians and give their heart, their soul, their energy, and all their power to Canada.”
That was Laurier’s wish for us. And it is mine for you. Be hopeful and positive, my friends. Your country needs you.
May peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.
Acknowledgements
There were many people involved in the creation of this book, and I’m grateful for their input and support.
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