Jack Layton's speech on Healthcare at Edmonton, AB
Thu 22 Dec 2005
Thank you for coming out. It’s great to be in the beautiful city of Edmonton
I want to talk first about the future of Canada.
There are those who want the election to be about who can do the most political posturing about the place of Quebec in confederation. The revisiting of old debates because they’re out of new ideas. The future of Quebec – its place within Canada – is an important issue.
But it is not the ONLY issue, because wherever we look, we’re losing Canada. The whole thing and that sense that we stand for something. Something to each other. Something to the world.
There was a time when Canadians listened to their Prime Minister, they knew what that Prime Minister believed. There was a time when the Prime Ministers themselves knew what they believed. Not anymore.
We now have a Liberal Prime Minister who seems to think that Lester Pearson is just the name of an airport. Paul Martin’s Liberals are so busy playing political games they’ve forgotten what they believe in. After 12 years of abandoning what the Liberal Party used to stand for, all we get now is political posturing.
Phoney fights with Quebec separatists and our American neighbours. Phoney fights in which Paul Martin will say anything for a vote. And phoney fights designed to hide one shameful fact:
That under Paul Martin, the Liberals have lost their values and broken so many promises they don’t even bother to pretend anymore. They’re avoiding the responsibility of respecting Canadians’ values – with action – not election rhetoric.
For Mr. Martin, it’s all a game.
And the Conservatives? The Conservatives are today’s Liberals in a hurry.
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives want to privatize faster, pollute faster, integrate our economy into the United States faster.
And the reason we have so many phoney fights is simple: Paul Martin’s record looks a lot like Stephen Harper’s platform. More for-profit health care. More pollution. Less sovereignty. No wonder people are looking for change.
Because the kind of Canada they keep voting for isn’t here. And they’re tired of waiting.
I’m raising these questions about the future of Canada in Alberta for a reason.
Ralph Klein has said that I’ve been clear on health care. I came to deliver a message. One that he needs to hear.
Back off.
You are not going to destroy public health care. New Democrats won’t let you. Make no mistake about it.
Ralph Klein is picking up right where this spring’s Chaoulli decision left off. He’s preparing to undermine our public health care system.
It’s the issue people say they care about the most. And yet Mr. Martin and Mr. Harper have nothing to say to Mr. Klein.
His government has commissioned a study – costing a million and a half dollars – to tell it how to end the system of single-payer, universal health insurance. And replace our medicare system with one where private, for-profit insurance companies can get into the market.
New Democrats will not stand by, doing nothing, while public health care is destroyed. Paul Martin had his chance to clamp down on premiers who won’t respect medicare. He failed.
The NDP won’t.
We founded medicare. And we’ll protect and improve it.
Working families have the right to know that public health care is there for them – and for their parents, who deserve dignity after a lifetime of building this country.
So I’m telling Ralph Klein, Gordon Campbell – and Jean Charest too.
New Democrats will defend public health care.
When a provincial government takes the wrong road, we need more from the Prime Minister than a phoney fight. We need a real backbone.
The backbone Mr. Martin only finds when he’s saying anything for a vote.
Friends, if all we ever do in elections is let politicians pick phoney fights, we’ll never get the debate…or the change…people want.
Paul Martin ne protégera pas les principes de notre système public de soins de la santé.
Un système de santé instauré pour la première fois par Tommy Douglas en Saskatchewan.
Je dis donc à Ralph Klein – et à Jean Charest aussi, Même si Paul Martin ne défend pas ce que son père a aidé à construire,
Les Néo-démocrates verront à protéger le système public de soins de la santé.
Health care’s rapid privatization is one example of a real debate that we won’t back down on.
But there are others, too, right here in Alberta.
Average Albertan working families are just like working families all across this country – they want to know their children can get access to good skills training, or good post-secondary education, at a cost their family budget can afford. They want to see national leadership on that issue.
Average working families in this province need affordable housing – from Calgary up to Fort McMurray. We made a good start in last spring’s NDP budget. But there’s a lot left to do.
And average working families in Alberta and all across this country deserve better than to see their province’s resources and utilities being sold out from underneath them.
Yet we’ve seen Liberals encourage the Chinese Government to buy up part of the oil sands…
And one of George Bush’s biggest backers already owns some of our water and sewage systems in Alberta.
Those are some of the real issues in this campaign. Health privatization. Education and training. Looking after our seniors. Looking after our kids. Housing. Protecting our economic sovereignty.
It might be easier for Paul Martin to pick phoney fights than talk about things that matter to people, but Canada deserves better.
More NDP MPs will do better. And deliver the kind of change people want. But we can’t do it alone.
So as this first phase of the campaign wraps up and the holidays begin, As you gather with your family, Your friends and your loved ones, I’d ask you to talk it over. And ask why Mr. Martin is so afraid to talk about real issues that matter to people.
I think it’s because his record shows he won’t deliver for people.
So if you voted Liberal in the past because you believed they stood for something, but find you can’t believe a word they say. New Democrats can make a real change if you change your vote.
If you voted Conservative or Reform or Alliance in the past because you thought their MPs would fight to clean up government – to make it accountable. But found they didn’t and they won’t. New Democrats can make a REAL change, if you change your vote.
But we can only make it if you change your vote. And consider voting NDP. For the kind of change you want.
And now, on a lighter note, I’m delighted to be joined by the Raging Grannies who are here to give us some political cheer.
Thank you. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.
Over to you – the Edmonton Chapter of the Raging Grannies.
