Thomas Saras 
(President, National Ethnic Press
and Media Council of Canada)

June 18th, 2004 - Mississauga, ON - 36 minutes

MODERATOR:  It's okay, we're finished?  We are going to have the time
later on also to take some pictures.  Although the Honourable Prime Minister, I don't think that he needs any introduction, let me say a few words. Canada has been a world leader in economic prosperity.  In the last Number of years, we have record job growth, low interest rates and, of course, seven balanced budgets during the years Mr. Martin was serving as Minister of Finance.  Many of us in this room, we understand that his compassion And understanding of minority rights as we saw him a few days ago on the TVfighting for those rights on our behalf.  And this multicultural (inaudible) came at the knee of his father, Paul Martin Senior.  It was his father that brought in the Canadian Citizenship in 1947 and strengthened equality of all Canada's citizens, and his father was a senior Minister with Prime Ministers Pearson and Trudeau as they ushered in bilingualism and multiculturalismAnd of course as they ushered in the national Medicare.In this campaign, we have heard different views about many of theseCanadian policies.  Today the Prime Minister in person is going to refer to hisOwn policies and his own views about multiculturalism and how he sees theFuture of this country.  Please welcome the Prime Minister of Canada.[Applause]

PAUL MARTIN (Prime Minister of Canada):  Thank you.  Thank you very, Very much.  My understanding is that I should engage in some brief remarks And then we can get into a discussion, a question and answer period. Thank You very, very much for your introduction.

And let me just simply say to you that I once had a conversation with my father before he passed away in which I asked him after a long career as a Cabinet Minister under four Prime Ministers which of all of his accomplishments in foreign affairs or in health care did he find the one that was the most satisfying.  And he said to me, exactly as you have just said, that it was in fact bringing in the Canada Citizenship Act.

Because he felt... and he's given two reasons for that.  One of them occurred when he visited the war cemetery in Dieppe in France.  And as he went through the cemetery he looked down at the names of the young men who had died - and these were people seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old - but he looked at the names and they were the names that had come from the four corners of the globe, who had come to this country, whose parents in all likelihood had come to this country, and then they had gone off to battle.  And he said there was something the matter with people who have come to make this country what it is and yet we're still British
subjects, people who have come from countries that are a long way from being British subjects.  And that always had had a tremendous effect on me.

The second reason that he did it, and I don't know how many of you know My home town of Windsor, Ontario, but Windsor, Ontario is one of the great cities, because it's an industrial city, that in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War welcomed the huge waves of immigrants.   And I grew up in a city where in fact your next-door neighbour could have come from any one of a multitude of countries, and they were men and women of great accomplishment who suddenly found their lives uprooted.  That story of my father has had a profound effect on me and on the way in which I look at
the world and look at our country.

The second story or aspect that I will simply tell you is as Finance
Minister I attended, four to five times a year, meetings of the Finance
Ministers with all of the other great nations of the world.  And it was
Very clear to me, right from the very beginning, that as a Canadian I had a Very different perspective on the world than did most of my counterparts. And as some of you may know, I have just come from a meeting of the G-8 heads Of state in Georgia, and the last night before I left we had a very Informal supper where the eight of us just sat around the table and discussed things. And I raised the issue of our different perspectives on the world, and it's very clear that we in Canada have a perspective that no other country does, because we look at it through the eyes of the world, not through the eyes of any particular ethnic group, race or religion.

What we have done in this country is essentially create a new identity,
An identity far richer than the one that we began with.  And where other
countries have essentially welcomed immigrants, those immigrants have
been grafted on to a core and the core remained, but what's happened in
Canada is that we have in fact developed a new identity.  It's an identity with a Much richer perspective on what the world is all about, and when we establish Our foreign policy it gives us the ability to reach back into our own Population for understanding.  And this is very important.

The fact is that there are certain people who have the responsibility of
making sure that their people understand this, and which you have
discharged very well, but who also I think have the responsibility of making sure that other Canadians understand it.  And I think that is one that you and I both share.

We in this country are in the process of building a unique experiment.
I think we are the direction where the world is going, not where it has
been. We have a perspective on the world that is far wider than the others, and I would hope that our children and our grandchildren will be able to take that perspective into the greater world as a world in some chaos seeks to govern itself.

And so I'm very honoured that you've given me this chance to talk to
you. The Prime Minister of the country bears responsibilities, but he cannot discharge these responsibilities unless he's able to do it hand-in-hand with those people who represent what this country is all about.  And there can be few groups who represent what Canada is all about than you, the members of the media from the great diaspora which now makes up Canada.  So thank you all very, very much.  [Applause]

MODERATOR:   As I explained to you, following the remarks of the Prime Minister we are going to accept now questions.  I will appreciate be patient, be very short in your questions, and do not repeat yourself. If someone else said your question, please try to avoid.  I believe it's Cybbil, one of those who asked me to express her views. Cybbil, please.

Q:  I hope I'm not mistaken.

MARTIN:  You've got the whole floor.

Q:  Yesterday the news was full with the fact that Mr. Harper was being
daily and intimately advised by Mr. Mulroney.  Taking into account that
he is not on of  the most popular and well-loved Prime Minister in
Canada, doesn't that help you?

MARTIN:  (laughs)  Well, it may.  I think the essence of that is not so
Much Brian Mulroney's popularity or unpopularity, but the fact that I have Said that Stephen Harper's... Stephen Harper has put forth a set of financial projections upon which all of his spending and cutbacks are based.  And they make no sense.  They absolutely make no sense.  And in fact they were severely condemned by a wide range of economists in today's papers.  And very interesting, a number of the economists that Stephen Harper during the debate said supported him today came out and said he was wrong.

But the point that I have made is that in fact what he was doing was
Taking us back to the Mulroney years when we lived through huge deficits.  And so I  think he's confirmed it.  And so from that point of view I think you're right.  And I'm glad you pointed it out and I wish you'd tell more people. And thank you.

MODERATOR: Herman?

[Inaudible background comment]

MODERATOR:  There is a microphone at the back of you.

MARTIN:  Or I can hear you.  I'll... Sure.

Q:  There are thousands and thousands of foreign-trained professionals In this country and the Liberal government for the past two decades have Paid lip service but nothing has been done.  What will you do if you are re-elected as Prime Minister?

MARTIN:  One of the first things I did... Did you hear the question at The back?  The question is that there are thousands of foreign-trained professionals and that in fact for... they have been... I don't want to have to say this part, but they've been ignored by the Liberal government and what are we going to do about it?  [Laughter]  I think we've got to make a deal here.  If I'm going to repeat the questions, you can't attack the Liberal government!  In any event, I think the point is very well taken.

The first official meeting I had with the Premiers in January, because a Lot of this is provincial regulation, I raised the issue.  And the Premiers' defense was that in fact this is in the hands of the professional associations.  So what I said to them at the meeting that we will be having this summer with the Premiers, I said I want that on the agenda. I said... and we will make it an issue.

Now, I believe that in a number of areas there's going to have to be
Very strong proactive action.  And I'll give you an example of the kinds of things that I think that we should do.

First of all, there's got to be much better advice given to aforeign-trained professional before they come here so that they understand what they're getting into. But let's assume that they're here.  In our medical plan we put forth...I said that we would spend $75 million to train foreign-trained... to Allow foreign-trained medical professionals, doctors, to get up to snuff. But My understanding is it is... there is a problem in getting residencies in The hospitals and that's a question of money.  So what we will do is we will take $75 million and we will put that money into residencies in the various hospitals and it will be designed to create residencies for foreign-trained doctors so that they can get their training here, get their credentials, and get into the profession. And I said... after that I said that we'll do this as a pilot project
and if $75 million isn't enough, then we'll put in $150 million.  Because whatever the cost, the benefit to this country, with such a huge shortage of doctors, is that it would be a phenomenal opportunity for us.  That's the first thing.

The second thing is that I have met with the major engineering firms in
The country and a number of the major industrial firms in terms of
engineers. And I have said, look, we're going to have to sit down, you keep taking about shortages, and let's look at the tax incentives that will allow you to bring people in and if their credentials have to be brought up to snuff then let's do that.  And I believe that we can pretty well do it right across the board.

I've also met with the various professional associations, the engineers,
I've met with the medical professionals.  It's some pretty tough
Slogging going with them.  But I'm going to tell you, we're going to break the Back of this and the best way to do it, in my opinion, is to open up those residencies, have them there, have the money ready to do it, but only have them restricted to foreign-trained professionals.

MODERATOR:  Max Wynter, our vice-president.

Q:  Thank you.  Recently there have been changes in the immigration laws following I guess 9-11.  Do you foresee any significant changes in immigration and/or citizenship laws in the next Liberal administration? And if I may ask you to speculate on the possible changes that... or ask you To give an informed opinion as to any possible changes in immigration or citizenship laws that your other competitors (inaudible)...

MARTIN:  Well, I don't know... I'm going to ask you to give me a bit
More advice as to what you're really talking towards.  I don't see any
changes in citizenship, don't know why there would be.  I mean, unless... I mean, I think the citizenship... I think the... so I'd like to know what changes you're contemplating.  I don't off the top of my head see any.

In terms of immigration, we have a major problem, and that is we have
Said for every year that we want to have an immigration number of 1 percent, increase our population 1 percent a year.  To the best of my knowledge, we've never hit it.  And I want to hit it.  I want to go beyond that.

Q:  If I may, I understand that there are some concerns from the administration  for someone to achieve Canadian citizenship.

MARTIN:  Well, we will set citizenship laws in this country.  They're
Not going to be set abroad.  They'll be set by Canadians for Canadians and We will do it on the basis of Canadian needs.  And so, I mean, I can Understand where in the world - I mean, it's not just in the United States - there is a concern of security.  We all want to work together to make sure that we have security, but I can tell you that I don't see any way, shape or form that should affect our citizenship laws.  Our citizenship laws should be based on the basis that people apply and who basically have the qualifications.

In terms of immigration, we have a desperate need for more people and
Our problem is that we are just not even attaining our 1 percent.  I think We need more foreign immigration officers abroad.  I think we've got Massive backlogs which simply make no sense at all.  And I think that we have Got to... I think that we've got to break the back of that backlog and then we've got to have a much more steady stream.

I don't go to a city in this country, I don't care how small, in which
The number one issue raised by the municipal council is we need more people. That's what it is.  The most amazing thing... I was in... you know, let Me just give you one example.  I mean, I was in Winnipeg and they talked About the need for people.  And then I got into a plane and I went to Humboldt, Saskatchewan.  I don't know how many of you have ever been to Humboldt, Saskatchewan, but it's 5000 people in the middle of Saskatchewan.  And I Sat down and, you know, I thought what we were going to talk about was wheat. And as I said, so okay now, let's talk about it.  And they said, fine, We want to talk about our number one problem:  We need people.  I mean, it's staggering.  And so my own view is that we've got to satisfy... we've got to satisfy this problem.

And it's going to be difficult.  Let me just tell you that, you know,
The population, because of the ageing populations - we talked about this at The G-7 - the population of Russia is declining.  The Russian population in fifty years is going to be substantially smaller than it is today.  The population of Italy is going to be, in about forty years, is going to be two-thirds what it is today.  These are the countries that used to send up people.  I mean, we're going to be in competition for people as time goes on.  And as the economies of China and India increase, we're going to be in competition for people and we're in desperate need.  So, to be quite honest, we'll set according to our needs.  And they're going to be very, very much in terms of more immigration.

MODERATOR:  Thank you much.  Angelo Pirchikeli from Corriere Canadese

MARTIN:  Hello, Angelo.

Q:  Mr. Prime Minister, you said at the beginning that we created a new identity of multiculturalism a culture of many,  many cultures.  So if
multiculturalism is so good, why do you still have separatism in Quebec?

MARTIN:  Well, we don't have separatism in Quebec because of the
multicultural communities in Quebec.  Can I...?  I know you want short
answers but I'm not going to... Can I pick up on that, on separatism,
and let me just tell you a story about how important the multicultural
community is.

During the last referendum... The question, to those of you who may not
Have heard Angelo's question, was if multiculturalism is working why do we Still have separatism in Quebec?

During the last referendum, I ended up in a debate with a separatist and
after the debate we got into the question period, question and answer
period following the debate.  And a woman stood up and she was from... obviously she had been born abroad.  She was an immigrant, she was an elderly, elderly woman who had been born abroad.  And she stood up and she said to the péquiste, the separatist, she said, Why are you trying to tear my country apart?  And the separatist looked at her and he said, Madam, this is not your country, you were not born here.

And I was about to step and defend her when she stood up again, just
gave me a look like, Sit down, I'm going to handle my own problem, and she said the following:  She said, You tell me that this is not my country. So let me just tell you my history.  She said, I was born in a land far from here, and she said, When I was very young I married and my husband left our land to go to Canada.  And he was going to earn enough money to bring me over.  And she said I was supposed to come in about a year.  And he didn't get enoughmoney for me to come in six years.  So for six years I corresponded with my husband but I didn't see him, and I cried myself to sleep every night.

But she said, Then I emigrated to Canada and we came.  And we moved to a town and I started having children.  But I didn't see my parents and I didn't see the cousins in the town in which I lived.  And she said, When my mother died I couldn't get back for her funeral.  And when my father died I couldn't get back for his funeral.  And you're telling me that I haven't given to this country?

And she said, and so I cried myself to sleep every night because I
missed my land and I missed my parents and I missed their funerals.  And she said, Then I raised three children and they're tremendous children but they're Canadians and they speak English better than I could ever speak English And they don't understand the culture of my land and I have a gulf between Me and my children.  Not that they don't love me, but they don't understand where I came from and I don't understand what they're about.  And I've cried myself to sleep over that.

And she said, I have now lived in this country for sixty years, I think
She said.  I have raised three children who are all successes, who live in a land that I still don't fully understand and who speak a language which I still don't fully understand and I've been separated from my family. And you're telling me that this is not my country?  And she sat down and the audience erupted and the separatist left and that was the end of it. That's what it's all about.

MODERATOR:  Mr. Prime Minister, as I stated at the beginning, that
National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada speaks in many languages in Many communities, from local neighbour hoods to the biggest cities all over Canada.  Some publications are travelling from coast to coast and they're bringing the message of the government to their own communities and the message of... the concerns of their own communities to the government. Our country, whether we were born here or recently arrived, must remain an Open and safe society for us all.

We call upon you to continue your battle for a Canada where all our
Rights are protected, where our children and grandchildren have the
Opportunities to contribute, to succeed in a prosperous Canada.

At this point I will take the opportunity, this opportunity, in the name
Of the participants, all the members of the Council and the members of the industry, to thank you for your stand the other day at the debate.  Mr. Prime Minister, we are encouraged by your balanced approach to Government and your tenacity to get things done.  We know you will.

This is a historic first.  We have a Prime Minister to honour the members of the ethnic press of Canada.  This is a new policy of inclusiveness, and we thank you, Sir, for this approach.  We wish you the greatest success on June 28th and look forward to welcoming you back in the future with us.

I will appreciate for the members of the ethnic press to wait here,
don't move out, as this meeting approaches an end.

UNIDENTIFIED:   I have a question Sir..

MARTIN:  Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED:   The ethnic press has never been treated as the
Mainstream media.  For example, today we were told by the (inaudible)... the Prime Minister would be here at 2:05. * You're already here for almost three Hours and you said nothing about this. (The President’s email was stating clearly that the PM will be with us at 3.05, not 2.05, as Hassan Zerehi said.)

MARTIN:  I didn't know that.

UNIDENTIFIED:   Yeah, because we have the e-mails and everything. They Said you will be here at 2:05.  If you were invited by the mainstream media, You would be on time (inaudible)...

MODERATOR:  Excuse me, excuse me...

UNIDENTIFIED:   I'd like to hear from the Prime Minister, Mr.
(inaudible)...

MODERATOR:  Prime Minister, please.  The Prime Minister is our guest and there is a matter of hospitality.  The Prime Minister is a politician...

UNIDENTIFIED:  I have to hear from him, Sir, please.

MARTIN:  No, let me answer.  First of all, one of the things that
happens in an election campaign is that you... basically you have a schedule which is set.   I think you can pretty well understand that I don't set that schedule.  I basically follow along.  And I have come this morning from St. Catherines and we stopped in along the way.  If I am late, I did not know I was late.  I mean, I...

UNIDENTIFIED:   You were already here...

MARTIN:  No, no.  I apologize... let me just say something.  I apologize very, very much for being late.  I did not know, I did not know I was late. If I had in fact been informed that I was late, I certainly would have apologized to you, and I apologize now.

And to be very honest, I guess the only one area that I would disagree With you is that I haven't been late that much in terms of this campaign, but I was late for a major meeting with the mainstream media also.  So the one thing I can say is that I guess I'm treating everybody pretty well the same.

But you know something?  You know the real fact?  Is there is no excuse For that.  There is no excuse for keeping people waiting as long as you have said, and I'm sorry about it.  I happen to think that the ethnic media is very, very important, very important, and I'm quite prepared to stay longer. If I have cut this too short, I will not cut it short.  I also Appreciate however that if I've kept you waiting then obviously you've got other Things to do.  But there's no excuse for being late and I'm sorry.  [Applause]

Q:  May I ask a question?

MARTIN:  Sure, please.

Q:  Thank you very much for coming today with us There are 300,000 citizens from Sri Lanka and they expecting us to keep them informed about the policies of this country. It is very, very hard for us to continue our job without the assistance of the Government.And we still continue to fight to keep our publications printed.  And so I would likeTo ask you what happen with the government’s ads we use to receive.Thank you.

MARTIN:  But is there not a percentage allocated now?

UNIDENTIFIED:   Absolutely not.

MARTIN:  Nothing at all?

UNIDENTIFIED:   I have been in that situation for ten years.  And one
Agency is requesting a fifteen percent commission in order to place me on the list.

MARTIN:  Is that right?

UNIDENTIFIED:   And one agency insist that we have to pay and have him taking 30 percent off the amount of the ad as a commission for his services. Under the circumstances how we will survive if they take that amount from us. Thank you.

MARTIN:  Well, this is really on the question of advertising.  I'll make
You... look it, I'll make you a deal.  I would be quite prepared to meet
With you in July.  I don't... if that's the case I don't... no, there ought
to be government advertising, there ought to be a reasonable allocation of
government advertising.  The same thing... I know we do it in terms of
the smaller weeklies across the country.  It ought to be done very clearly
in terms of the ethnic press and I'll... we'll do two things.  Number one,
we'll have the meeting and we'll take a look at it.  I will have the
Minister of Culture, who I believe is the person who administers this, I
will have her with me when we have the meeting, and I promise you we
will be on time.  [Laughter and applause]

MODERATOR:  Please very, very short, Angelo.

Q:  Very short.  Mr. Prime Minister, can you explain us, hypothetically
speaking, what are the implications of a minority government after this
election?

MARTIN:  Well, I very much hope that there will not be a minority
government.  The essence... the biggest problem with a minority
government is the inability to deal essentially on major issues.  If I have... I don't know if I would have been able to eliminate the deficit if we had had a minority government.

I believe that the number one priority in this country is health care
And that in fact there is going to have to be a huge level of cooperation between the federal government and the provinces in a way we've never seen. Whether that is going to be possible with a minority government remains To be seen.  I think the same things applies... I think we've got to Establish a national child care policy.  And this... by the way, a national child Care policy is very important in terms of immigration because people coming here, the huge dislocation in their lives, and whether we would be able to do that in the case of a minority government remains to be seen.  So it really has to do with the ability to carry through on an agenda.

MODERATOR:  We will accept only two questions, that's it.

MARTIN:  Well, I think... how about three?

MODERATOR:  Because the Prime Minister has commitments and someone else
Will attack him after us because he was late.  Please, please...

MARTIN:  Well...

Q:  Mr. Prime Minister, in the debate you mentioned that you would like
To reduce the waiting times.

MARTIN:  Yes.

Q:  How would you do that?

MARTIN:  Well, it really goes back to... one of the ways I'm going to
Tell you is if we have a thousand foreign-trained doctors who were suddenly allowed to be doctors, we're going to have a lot more doctors.  That's one of the reasons that waiting times are so long.

The second is the uses of the new technology we're not using.  I've just
come, and this may be the reason that I was late, I just came from a
major cancer hospital where in fact we were talking about it.  And they were simply going through the numbers of procedures which the use of new technology will allow them to cut down on the length of time it takes to get treatment, and it was very, very important.  So I think if we did that kind of thing we would be able to cut down on waiting times.

And the other one, and one of the big things that they use, is the use
Of nurse practitioners.  If we were to use... nurses could do a great deal
More than what they do in terms of the medical profession.  So that's a third way.

Q:  My question, Mr. Martin... My name is Vladimir, I am the publisher of the Bay Street journal in Russian.   I'm interested in your opinion about G-8 And Canadian and Russian cooperation in future.  Thank you.

MARTIN:  Well, I think that... I actually had a bilateral with President
Putin on terms of the North and said, look, you know, we are the two
great Arctic nations and there's obviously a huge environmental problem but there's also got to be a huge amount of economic development, given the richness of Siberia, the natural resource richness that they have and we have.

And so we did agree that in fact we would probably meet this summer and That we would see how we would take essentially... There was a framework agreement for economic development between ourselves and Russia but it's just been sitting on the shelf; nothing's happened with it.  And that I said, look, let's give it life.  And he agreed.  So we've agreed to meet this summer on that.

MODERATOR:  Last speaker.

Q:  Mr. Prime Minister, I am from a Chinese Daily newspaper.
And the problem I raise is about the head tax in the early last century.
Now the problem is that a member of the Parliament, Inky Mark, he raised a private bill on that required the government to apologize and compensate on that.  And they want to be the champion for the right of the Chinese-Canadians.  What are the Liberals...?  What do you do to counter that?

MARTIN:  Yeah, well, we... I think we all recognize... I think we
Recognize the need to deal with itThe problem is that the Chinese community, I mean, they're... as with everything, I mean, it's easy to talk... we talkabout the Chinese community but you know as well as I do that there aremany Chinese communities with many different views, the same way as in every group.

And I've met with the heads of the various Chinese associations and
they' ve got to come together and say, This is what we want.  Right there there's a recognition of the need to act but there is not a recognition of how to act. And to be very honest, as a government we don't want to really act over Here and then have all of the other Chinese communities very upset with us. So we've basically said to them, look, come together, come up with a common Way of dealing with this issue, and we will move.

MODERATOR:  Thank you very much.  No, please, please, I cannot take any More time.  The Prime Minister has a very busy day.  We appreciate the fact That he came here, and my apologies, Sir.

Q:  Sir, I am the publisher of a Sri Lankan Tamil newspaper.  And I have a question About the situation in the old country. Here in Canada there are more than 300,000 Tamils living in this country.And back home in Sri Lanka there's a peace process going on after twentyyears.  So twenty years we are in a situation that  fighting went on.  But inthis time, on the behalf of 300,000 Tamil-Canadians, would you take a bigpart on this peace process and will you stop the war game?  Will you take part,a big part?  Because on behalf of the 300,000 Tamil-Canadians living in
Canada?

MARTIN:  Yeah, we... first of all, one of the things I was saying at the
very beginning is that we do recognize that within our country there are
people... there are problems around the world and there are people who
represent those populations around the world and we are prepared to take
whatever action that we can.  We don't want to get in the way; we don't want to make a problem worse.  But if there is something that we can do to help the peace process, the answer is absolutely we would like to help the peace process.  But it's got to be in a way that it can advance.  You see, I don't want to get involved here... we cannot... if we can advance the process, if we can be a positive force, whether it's in Sri Lanka or anywhere, we are...we would want to be that positive force.

MODERATOR:  Thank you very much.  Thank you all.  Thank you, Mr.Prime Minister.

MARTIN:  Again, I'm sorry I was late.  We got... let's have... we'll
Have this meeting in July and I'll be there.  [Applause]

saras@patrides.com
http://www.nepmcc.ca/