Mandate Letter For The Prime Minister
Congratulations, Mr. Carney. The Liberals have won the election and you are now our Prime Minister. I hope you know what this means. The weight of decision, the governance of this great but immature country, rests upon your shoulders.
We are a weak country that needs to make itself strong. Which is why you campaigned on this very slogan. Our regional and linguistic differences pull us apart. We need leadership to remind us of what we have in common.
A real country is measured not by its dependence on others, but by its independence. As a commercial war threatens to engulf the planet, we need to create an oasis of free trade here within our own country. We need to buy, and sell, Canadian.
Mr. Prime Minister: bring down inter-provincial trade barriers.
Thankfully, you are a capitalist. Not all your predecessors have had a solid command of basic economic principles. That our Prime Minister, as world recession looms on the horizon, is an expert in wealth creation, is vastly encouraging. Particularly to those whose jobs hang in the balance, to those trying to eke out a living on the minimum wage, or to the aged and the just plain defeated, unable to make this month’s rent.
On the world stage, we must stand by our allies, openly, firmly, with both words and action. Ties with nations that share our values, particularly France and Britain, must be maintained, nourished and strengthened. We cannot have enough honest, dependable friends in times of economic turbulence and political unease. Of course, in order to have reliable support, we must give it. How can we be taken seriously as a military ally if our recruitment is over 10,000 men and women short? We need intense investment, and we need it now.
Domestically, things will not be easier. As Prime Minister of this immense, adolescent country, you face a serious conundrum of governance. Two of our most urgent matters lie, constitutionally, beyond your realm of action. And yet, if nothing is done, and without your pro-active leadership nothing will be, our nation’s future is at risk.
The first of these touches on education.
Canada was not born through revolution, as the result of a collective rage. It was not conceived in ideology, fervor and song. Our nation was birthed as a business deal. And it has worked. We have made it work. However, our cultural roots have diversified far beyond any expectation, or indeed anything the Fathers of Confederation could have imagined.
While strong, the attachment of many newly arrived families does not penetrate deeply into our historical soil. Time goes by and our foundational past recedes into the mist. Fewer and fewer of us have personal or family ties to the great events that have marked our nation’s infancy: the world wars, the depression, the quiet revolution. The number of Canadians whose grandparents fought for this country, or lived through its toughest times, is diminishing. Successive waves of immigration renew our population but weaken our hold on history. And a nation without a common history, is not a nation.
We need a national history curriculum. Canadian children need to learn a common history in all our schools, from coast to coast to coast. One that values our diverse origins, but also raises up and celebrates our shared struggles, setbacks and triumphs. Without it, we may never have the common language and the shared values necessary to bind us together as a nation.
The challenge will be to get the provinces and territories to agree. Our constitution, of course, tells us that education is a provincial power. There will be resistance. It will be a test of federal leadership, and, at the same time, of provincial commitment to Canada. It will be a tough battle no doubt, but one well worth waging. Because without a common sense of the past, we will have no future.
The second of these issues is our health-care system.
Sick Canadians are suffering alone. Uncared-for. Dying. And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot put our hospitals together again. Why? Because the problem has outgrown the provinces. Yes, the Constitution says it is up to them. But they will not solve it. We know this, because they have had decades to do it, and they have not. And the longer we wait, the more our citizens will die as their turn on the surgical waiting list never comes, or as the over-worked nurses and doctors never quite make it to their gurney, sitting as it does, down a long corridor and around a corner, lost in the winter extension of the emergency ward.
Only Federal leadership can break this truly life-or-death log jam. Mr. Carney, it is your challenge to rally provinces and territories to untie this Constitutional Gordian knot. The lives of our citizens depend upon it.
One more thing, on the domestic front. Crime has been rising for the last decade. You need to end, and end now, the Liberals’ complicity in this. It is time to show that our famous compassion, a hallmark of your party and of our country, rightly puts the innocent, the victim, and indeed the citizen, first, before the guilty – and not the other way around.
Regarding your personal attributes, Mr. Carney, you speak one official language. Now you need to learn the other. Well. And without delay. Everyone knows that you have degrees from Harvard and Oxford, one of them a doctorate in economics. No-one will believe you cannot learn French.
And so, as you struggle to achieve these goals, that you are a minority government is no excuse. Surely you can find three, among the 174 non-Liberal MPs, who would be proud to vote for Liberal initiatives: a roof over every head, a real, genuine military to defend us, and a proper history education for all our kids. Only condition: put Canada first.
This should be our national call to arms. Help those in need. The less fortunate, because we want a just society. The meek, because they believe the system no longer works for them. (In fact, it does not see them). The weak, because they are exploited by the strong, and need our protection. The disenfranchised, because no-one listens to them and yet, they have something to say. The victim, because they are left alone, undefended. The lost, because otherwise, they will remain lost.
The important thing is that we elevate the act of giving. That we remember why democracy was invented: to bring all voices in. Our nation is our home. And we have not finished building it.