\"Canada is the issue on which the next election should be fought. \"

Family, friends, political colleagues, fellow New Democrats, a grateful welcome to you all for being here this morning to join me as I announce what must be the worst kept secret in town, that I will be a candidate for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Canada. Je serai un candidat pour le cheferie de l’NPD, et merci, tout le monde pour votre presence ici ce matin.

Pour faire ceci, il est premièrement important pour moi de rendre hommage a Alexa McDonough, mon amie et un chef de notre parti de la quelle nous pouvons être fière. Ègalement Alexa we thank you for the breakthrough in Atlantic Canada that will be your enduring legacy to the NDP and for your leadership since 1995. We take comfort from the fact that Alexa will continue to lead us until a new leader is chosen, and that she intends to continue as a member of parliament.

Thank you Premier Doer for your words of introduction. It is an honour to have you front and centre at this event just as it is an honour to know that I have the support of former NDP premiers Howard Pawley and Ed Schreyer. Thank you to Jamie Skinner, who along with Rob Hilliard, President of the Manitoba Federation of Labour and Stan Struthers, MLA for Dauphin, has agreed to co-chair the Manitoba campaign. I also welcome this morning Manitoba M.P.’s Judy Wasylycia-Leis and Bev Desjarlais, who along with Pat Martin M.P. for Winnpeg Centre are supporting me this morning. Wendy Lill NDP M.P. for Dartmouth is also supporting me at this time and I am confident that as time progresses I will have other caucus members joining my campaign.

My national campaign will be co-chaired by Jack Harris Leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador New Democrats and Dawn Black former NDP M.P. from B.C. with Iain Angus, former NDP MP from Thunder Bay, Ontario as my campaign manager. Furthermore I am pleased to note that I have the support of over 30 former NDP M.P.’s who have worked with me in previous Parliaments and who know what I can bring to the job of leading the N.D.P. in Parliament and across the country.

Welcome to Stella Mission, the home of North End Community Ministry. This is the place where J.S. Woodsworth worked many years ago, for new Canadians and for a new Canada, where all would be at home and where all would be treated justly. Bienvenue à Stella Mission, chez North End Community Ministry, ou j’ai travaillé pour l’église unie, avant ma première élection à la chambre des communes en mille neuf cent soixante-dix neuf. Nous sommes ici aujourd’hui parce qu’ici nous nous souvenons des racines de notre partie, et la lutte pour la justice sociale et l’égalité dans notre pays.

In this place we are reminded of our roots, in the social gospel, in the struggle for social justice for ordinary Canadians, and in Winnipeg’s unique history as one of those places where working men and women have continuously stood up to those who would exploit them. When I worked here at Stella Mission, in the late 1970’s, we were dealing with the first of many neo-conservative governments in this country who have consistently sought to roll back the social progress achieved in the post war decades. When I worked here, I worked with many others, in various coalitions, at the same time as I was active in the NDP. For me the two have always gone together, coalition work and party politics.

I have heard it said of the NDP that we are too attached to the past but I tell you it is our political opponents who are the Jurassic Park of Canadian politics. They would take us back to a meaner time when money was the measure of all things. We stand for the future that was sought and won and which must now be defended and enhanced.

Eighty-three years ago this month, in 1919, the leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike were arrested. The criminalization of dissent that we have experienced lately is not new in Canada. Their crime was that they had the temerity to advocate a minimum wage, that workers should have the right to be represented by a union. The very things that are now lacking for so many people in the new globalized economy.

The strike was a founding moment of the political left in Canada and of the NDP tradition here in Manitoba, where the social gospel, the Jewish left, the trade union movement, and farm activists combined to be a formidable force. J.S. Woodsworth, charged with sedition for quoting the prophet Isaiah went from activist in the strike to member of parliament for Winnipeg North Centre, thus embodying the insight which we must communicate to the activists of our day, that social activism is something that must be complimented by, and followed by electoral activism. Much of what we cherish about Canada today is a reality because of J.S. Woodsworth and others after him, like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and David Orlikow, and Ed Schreyer who made their way with the peoples support into the legislatures and parliament of this country, to form governments and to influence governments.

Our collective task as New Democrats and mine as leader should I succeed in what we are starting today will be to invite all those young people who see the world today as an unjust, undemocratic and unsustainable reality to work with us as we will with them to change that reality. I invite them to live from the hope that inspired earlier generations to successfully challenge the structures of injustice in their day and age. Today we must, as Ed Broadbent said in a recent article in the Globe and Mail, challenge the “anti-equality barbarism of neo-conservatism”. In facing this challenge we must be practical in the best political sense of that word, will to mix new and old ideas in an innovative way.Too often as a party we spend too much time talking to ourselves and not to others, and not enough time being challenged by those in our world who are engaged in serious justice oriented reflection on the many difficult problems which the world faces.

Likewise, in the spirit of the New Politics Initiative, we will need to have an intense and constructive dialogue with those social movements in Canada which share our views. We each have a role to play in bringing about change, working together, but also separately, as the NDP does what only political parties can do, which is to seek office and the power to make needed changes. It matters who is in government and who is not. We need only look to Manitoba to know this is true. It matters which parties are strong in parliament and which aren’t. Today we hear much talk about the Canada Health Act and the need to strengthen it. That same Canada Health Act wouldn’t be there at all had it not been for the role of the NDP in the House of Commons in the early eighties.

But it is not just equality that we fight for, it’s Canada itself. What makes Canada the country we love, the country that is the envy of the world, is the way in which we have built a society different from that which the market alone would have created. We are a country with a social democratic majority and if we are going to keep those social democratic policies and programs which make Canada Canada, then we are going to need a truly social democratic government to maintain and expand upon our values. Canadians deserve an alternative to watching the Liberals steadily give in to the domestic and international forces that would have us retreat from progress already made, and from progress that is still possible but yet unrealized because of a lack of political will. Our responsibility is to provide that alternative.

Dans ce contexte, je dis que c’est absoluement nécessaire que tous les québecois et les québecoises qui sont aussi des socio-democrates, travaillent ensemble avec l’NPD en defense des valeurs que nous tenons en commun. Comme le chef de l’NPD je travaillerais avec mes collegues pour amener ce but. J’espère que la lutte mutuelle pour une société juste sera une source d’unité parmis tous qui partage un sensibilité socio-democraticque.

An early figure in the social gospel, Salem Bland, also from Winnipeg, said in 1913 that Canadians were a nation “headed along the same road as the United States, ruled by millionaires- We need an ideal, before our resources are seized- our ideal should be Canada for the people.” We didn’t go down that American road in the 20th Century, at least for a while. Let’s not go any further down it now in the 21st century. Let’s continue to do what we can to make this our Canada, as David Lewis and Frank Scott said in 1944, and as NDP leaders like Gary Doer and Howie Hamption and other povincial NDP leaders do today when they fight for publicly owned Hydro and publicly funded health care. Not to mention the enduring legacy of Ed Schreyer and Howard Pawley here in Manitoba, in the form of public auto insurance. Our next battle will be against those who would privatize our water, either for bulk export or domestic profiteering.

Canada is the issue on which the next election should be fought. I promise you that an NDP led by Bill Blaikie will make Canada the issue.

An NDP led by Bill Blaikie will also make democracy an issue. We need reforms to our democracy which make sure that the votes of Canadians count more than they do now, if we are to stem the decline of voter turn out. Proportional representation of some kind is a must, designed not only to increase voter participation, but to reduce negative regional politics. And we need reforms to make sure that while votes count for more than they do now, money counts for less. Significant reform of election and party financing is in order, and not just as a diversion from Liberal scandals or the fact that we still do not have an independent ethics commissioner.

If we value democracy as much as we say we do we should be prepared to support it more than we do now with public resources. As social democrats, as democratic socialists, as New Democrats, perhaps we need to put more emphasis than we have on the democratic aspect of our political orientation for it is only when we have a more genuine democracy that Canadians will be more able and more likely to support our social, economic, and environmental goals. Part of strengthening our democracy will be continuing the commitment of the NDP to the involvement of many more women in politics, a commitment so well symbolized by the pioneering work of Audrey McLaughlin and then Alexa.

Democracy will be an issue, as it was in Seattle and Quebec City and will continue to be until we get trade agreements that are not designed to limit the legitimate power of government to act in the public interest. Chapter Eleven of the NAFTA stands out as a grievous example of what I am talking about. We need a Canadian government that isn’t shy about going into the world to fight for core labour standards, for human and political rights, for cultural and political diversity, for enforceable global environmental standards and for global community as opposed to just a global market place.

And of course we must also contend against the double jeopardy of so-called free trade partners who subsidize or erect tariff barriers when it suits them, as Canadian farmers have found to be their distress so recently.

The NDP is for a mixed economy, where the market, in its proper place can be affirmed along side forms of public and cooperative ownership. But this place for the market, as with all forms of ownership, must be balanced by what is good for workers and their families, here and abroad, and what contributes to a sustainable environment. We do not want a market society. When the market ethic infuses everything it is a corrupting influence. Even life itself is now to be patented and treated as a commodity. And we will not be able to avoid such a market driven society if we continue to have regional and global trade agreements whose primary purpose is to enshrine the market, and corporate property rights as a parallel economic and ultimately higher constitution than our political constitution.

Political principles don’t change, but circumstances and needs do. For example, Stella Mission is still a place where the vulnerable in this neighborhood can come for help in various ways, but the vulnerable in Winnipeg’s inner-city are now the growing number of aboriginal people who are making their way in a world where they must deal with the reality of discrimination, of cross cultural barriers, unemployment, poor housing and the multiple social and personal legacies of the residential school system and economic development on their land designed not for them but for others. In this respect I am proud to have the support of my former constituent, Rupertsland MLA and Manitoba Cabinet Minister, Eric Robinson who has shown so much leadership in the NDP on issues of concern to First Nations.

Whether it’s how we sell our wheat, manage our softwood lumber, look after our sick, promote our culture, educate our children, patent our drugs, or regulate our environment, our way of doing things is on a number of hit lists. We can either accept it, or resist. We already have an abundance of political parties willing to cater to the spirit of the age. I believe Canadians would like to resist dismantling their country. I believe that they will respond to a credible and thoughtful alternative to the silence of the lambs offered up by the Liberals, and the eager Canadian self-immolation advocated by Stephen Harper and the Alliance. I believe Canadians are ready not just for a social democratic conscience in Parliament, but for a Prime Minister who is a social democrat, or in this case, a lunch bucket social democrat as I was once called in a book on Canadian politics.

Indeed, I am proud of my home community of Transcona, of the railroaders and others who built it over the years. For me it is an example of what can happen when working people are paid decently, when education and health are public goods, when housing is affordable, when infrastructure is a priority, when volunteerism thrives, when opportunity is a reality. Let’s not let that kind of hope slip away, as it has already for so many Canadians.

And may I also say, there will be a greatly expanded role for rail transport in any Canada in which Bill Blaikie has a greater influence. One of the great delights of my political life has been the convergence between being an environmentalist and representing a community in which the railway has played such an important role. I’ve never had to worry that promoting rail, both passenger and freight that I would get into trouble with my good friend and supporter, prominent environmentalist Elisabeth May.

To all those who have supported me over the years, I ask now for your help to make our common dreams a reality. Let us work together to rebuild our cities, support our farmers, defend medicare, ratify and implement Kyoto, build affordable housing, invest in public transit, and combat poverty inequality, and discrimination. Let us continue to welcome people from all over the world to this land of promise. Let us be an example to the world of how people can get along, live and let live, share and create community. Let us work together for true global governance, for global rules that put sustainability and justice first. Let us work together to transform the energy of popular movements for change into real and lasting change.

Le Canada a une responsabilité au monde d’être tout ce qu’elle peut être, de faire face au monde comme exemple d’un pays engagé à la paix, à la justice et à la liberté des citoyens dans un contexte de partage et de communauté. Faisons-nous du Canada un pays compétitif en étant une des meilleures sociétés au monde au lieu de permettre l’abaissement recommandé par ceux qui veulent nous faire croire que le genre de société qu’on désire n’est pas possible.

With a proper appreciation of our roots, for the value of experience and with a vision of the future I look forward to working with all of you and with New Democrats all across this great land. Let’s have a leadership race that helps Canadians understand the issues. Let’s have a debate about the future of our country. Let this be the beginning of a sea change in Canadian politics that will wipe away the cynicism and betrayal of Canada that began with Mulroney and has so treacherously been complimented by Chrétien. Canadians deserve better.

Thank you once again, and a special thank you to my family, to my wife Brenda and my children Rebecca, Jessica, Daniel, and Tessa. I won’t be seeing as much of them as I normally would, but I take strength from the knowledge that they believe in what I am doing.