I want to talk to you today about the Canadian economy. I think Canadian politicians of all stripes may be taking our economy for granted right now.

That is at best unrealistic, and maybe even irresponsible. Canada is enjoying a prolonged period of economic prosperity that is being fuelled partially by a boom in non-renewable resources. Our lucky generation has an important responsibility not to just live off of the avails of those resources, but to build a sustainable economy that offers sustainable opportunities for future generations.     
Liberal governments, under the leadership of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, restored fiscal responsibility to Canada. If, today, we ignore economic issues as a party, we risk squandering this legacy and hard earned trust.

I have ideas on how to move Canada’s economy ahead and make it a leader in the 21st century, and that’s what I want to talk to you about today.

My background as a businessperson and an investment banker helps inform my ideas on what it’s going to take to make Canada a global economic leader.  I’m a third generation entrepreneur, having started my first successful business at university when I was just 19 years old. And as an MP, and especially as a cabinet minister, I’ve always applied business principles to getting better results for taxpayers.

Today, unemployment is at a 30-year low.  Inflation is under control.  We have trade and current account surpluses.  Economic growth is robust.

Certainly our Liberal government deserves credit for strong fiscal management. But as good as we were, we didn’t put the oil and gas into the ground in western Canada or under the sea off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Obviously, our generation of Canadians enjoys extraordinary wealth in natural resources.

I’m part of a lucky generation of Canadians – one that has both a moral responsibility and the economic opportunity to do even more for generations to follow.  We simply can’t squander our good luck.

As Prime Minister, I’ll move Canada beyond its hard-earned reputation for fiscal management with a set of ideas focused on economic innovation and global competitiveness.

Today, I will outline my 6-point plan for the Canadian economy.
1. Reform Canada’s tax and income support systems to create a fairer and more competitive economy.
2. Make Canada a global leader in the research, development, commercialization and export of clean energy and clean energy technologies.
3. Create long-term, market based economic opportunities for Canada’s Aboriginal peoples.
4. Harness multiculturalism and immigration as economic drivers.
5. Put competitiveness on the federal-provincial agenda, create a national securities regulator, and eliminate inter-provincial trade barriers.
6. Invest in, and attract private sector investment to, rural and small-town Canada through smarter, market-based rural and regional development.

Let’s start with taxes. We haven’t had meaningful tax reform in this country since the Carter Commission in 1971. It’s time to fix our broken tax system. When it comes to business taxes, Canada still has one of the highest effective tax burdens in the world.

We all know of Ireland’s successful experience in business tax reform. Even Sweden has cut its marginal corporate tax rate to around 11% when it’s more like 36% in Canada. Australia has followed suit. What is Canada waiting for?

On the personal tax side, the cut to the GST was the dumbest tax cut possible. Stephen Harper is more interested in buying votes than building prosperity.

For the country to move forward, our tax and regulatory policies need a complete overhaul. Tinkering won’t cut it.

That’s why as Prime Minister I’ll institute a broad review and reform of the nation’s taxation and regulatory policies.

I will dramatically reduce business taxes and all forms of taxes on capital and investment to create a thriving business environment while still providing the opportunity for broader social investment.
I’ll help the working poor, a group of Canadians that the current government has cut adrift.

Instead of following the Conservative lead by cutting the GST an extra point, I’ll use the tax revenue to provide a “working income tax benefit”—an income tax credit that will eliminate the welfare trap that forces people to stay on social assistance rather than find a job.
I’ll revamp the EI system—lowering premiums for companies whose employees rarely draw from unemployment insurance. We will increase funds available for training workers in industries in transition, and help Canada’s underemployed get the training they need to be more fully employed.
The Harper Conservatives, you may recall, cancelled the National Child Care and Early Learning Initiative bought in by the previous Liberal government. Then they replaced it with a hollow twelve hundred dollar taxable handout for every child under five.
I’ll reinstate the Liberal early learning program. It’s not only good social policy. It’s also good economic policy.

I will also create a tax credit targeted at the first 12 years of full-time work for younger Canadians.

Thanks to such a credit, the first $25,000 young people earn each year in their first twelve years of work would be completely tax free. This would be a huge break for young Canadians as they pay off student debt and start their careers and families.

But, why stop there?

As Liberal leader and Prime Minister I intend to ask the best tax and social policy minds in the country for their ideas and perspectives on how to build a better tax system and a progressive and prosperous Canada.

I mean people like Jack Mintz of the C.D. Howe Institute and Brian Lee Crowley of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. Experts like Ken Battle of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, Anne Golden of the Conference Board of Canada and Roger Martin, right here at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Perhaps the basic personal exemption shouldn’t be universal, but instead increased dramatically for low and middle income Canadians who really need the help.

Should we base the tax system on lifetime rather than annual earnings?

Questions like these deserve serious debate. I don’t have all the answers yet. But I understand the economy enough to ask the right questions. And I’ll have the courage to defend the best ideas.

Real leaders don’t base their ideas on this week’s polling data, but instead on the challenges and opportunities of the future. One of the biggest challenges we face as a country and as a planet in the 21st century is how to meet the world’s insatiable demand for energy while still protecting the fragile environment.

This global challenge represents a remarkable opportunity for Canada. Energy is Canada’s greatest global advantage. It is one area where this country has the genuine potential to be the world leader.

Leadership in energy production and technology brings with it the opportunity, the challenge, and the responsibility to also be a world leader in clean, environmentally sustainable energy production and use. This was the spirit behind the Liberal government’s support for the Kyoto agreement.

With visionary and determined leadership, Canada can play a key role in resolving perhaps the greatest global challenge of the 21st century – how to meet a huge and growing demand for energy while protecting the health of the environment. These twin objectives – which today appear to be in irreconcilable conflict – are key to continued human development and an improving quality of life world wide.

I’m here to tell you that as Prime Minister I’ll adopt an approach that allows Canada’s sustainability and energy strategies to be united and mutually re-enforcing.

My strategy will be market-led. I’ll implement sensible and transparent regulatory, tax and incentive policies that will spur the kind of huge, long-term private sector investments needed to make Canada the world’s clean energy leader.

I will partner with Canada’s energy leaders to build on Canada’s current energy successes by starting with clean conventionals. The biggest environmental and financial payoffs by far will come from investments in cleaner fossil fuels – for example, in oil sands extraction and clean coal technologies. We need much larger investments in basic R&D and to support risky, first-of-a-kind, full-scale demonstrations of new technologies such as coal gasification and CO2 capture, transport and sequestration.

I’ll encourage innovation by increasing investment in R & D and prototype support for all types of energy including wind, tidal power, biofuels, and nuclear. I’ll implement tax and regulatory measures to increase the commercialization of new energy technologies.

I’ll also launch incentives for consumers to make sound environmental choices—whether programs to make their homes more energy efficient or tax-breaks for fuel efficient cars.

Talk about win-win: policies like that will increase energy conservation while also helping to build a sustainable economy.

My goal is clear: that Canada be the world leader in the research, development, commercialization and export of clean energy and clean energy technologies.

I will balance economic innovation, environmental responsibility, and social progress.

I believe in a market based economy, not a market based society. The economy must work for all Canadians.

Consider Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. The Kelowna Accord was a step forward in establishing a framework to address social policy.

Now we need to move beyond Kelowna by building strong economic opportunities in partnership with Aboriginal peoples. Because without improved economic opportunities, self-government and self-determination will never be a reality.

My Aboriginal Prosperity Agenda will build on the Kelowna foundation to further help Canada’s Aboriginal peoples achieve their promise.

How?

- By improving transportation, broadband and telecommunications infrastructure.

- By setting up urban Aboriginal enterprise zones that will use the traditional treaty granted tax advantage as an economic driver, not simply a social policy.

- By attracting global capital and international investment for Aboriginal businesses.

- By streamlining and strengthening Aboriginal economic development programs.

- By improving access to venture capital—and reinstating and improving delivery of the INAC economic development fund.

I’ll relocate parts of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs to Western Canadian cities like Winnipeg, Regina or Saskatoon.

Better decisions result from government decision makers being located closer to the people being affected by those decisions. If, by decentralizing government agencies, we can balance the goals of best value for taxpayers and best services for Aboriginal Canadians, everyone wins.

I’ll even strengthen the federal government’s procurement policies to ensure that Aboriginal businesses have the opportunity to compete and succeed.

I’ll increase opportunities for Aboriginals in the federal public service.

And I’ll push Canadian corporate leaders to hire more Aboriginals, to appoint more to corporate boards and to buy from and invest in Aboriginal companies.

Harnessing the talent and entrepreneurial potential of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples is good for business.

I believe that multiculturalism isn’t just a social policy. It is an economic driver. Our entrepreneurial leaders in Canada’s multicultural communities can help us to build natural economic bridges to their countries of origin. Those countries are some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and we are not taking advantage of this important foot in the door of those crucial markets.

Our immigration policy needs to be tied more closely to our labour market needs.

The end result is increased prosperity—a necessity for all Canadians, everywhere, to reach their full potential.

I would work with the provinces to set up a national securities regulator with inter-provincial co-operation and the sharing of costs and revenue.  This would reduce costs, help monitor capital market activities, lead to better corporate governance and restore the faith of Canadian investors

There must also be smarter cooperation between federal and provincial governments to eliminate inefficiencies through shared services.

It’s time to get rid of inter-provincial trade barriers, reform regulations and enhance productivity.  Regulations are a form of hidden taxation that increase the cost of doing business and stifle Canadian enterprise.

Furthermore, we need to work with our trading partners to harmonize our regulatory frameworks to eliminate non-tariff barriers for Canadian companies while protecting the safety and security of Canadians.

I understand regional economies as somebody born and raised in Atlantic Canada.

We must build on the leadership of Pacific Gateway by investing in Atlantica—a proposed trading block that includes the Atlantic Provinces, eastern Quebec and the northeastern United States.  My government will help transform the region into a gateway between the 460-million people of the European Union and the 300-milliion in the United States.

As Prime Minister I will bring in federal investment tax credits to attract investment to Atlantic Canada and other areas of high unemployment in the country.

I’ll also invest more in post-secondary education and to ensure better rural access to high-speed Internet.

So this is my six point plan to build a more economically competitive, environmentally responsible and socially progressive Canada.
1. Reform Canada’s tax and income support systems to create a fairer and more competitive economy.
2. Make Canada a global leader in the research, development, commercialization and export of clean energy and clean energy technologies.
3. Create long-term, market based economic opportunities for Canada’s Aboriginal peoples.
4. Harness multiculturalism and immigration as economic drivers.
5. Put competitiveness on the federal-provincial agenda, create a national securities regulator, and eliminate inter-provincial trade barriers.
6. Invest in, and attract private sector investment to, rural and small-town Canada through smarter, market-based rural and regional development.

At the dawn of the 20th century, Sir Wilfred Laurier said that “the 20th century shall belong to Canada.” At the dawn of the 21st century, I believe that these ideas will help Canada realize her full and remarkable potential in this century.

Thank you.