The Hon. Paul Martin Prime Minister of Canada, with the members of the National Ethnic Media Council.
By Thomas S. Saras
Prime
Minister Paul Martin was the guest of the members of the National Ethnic
Press and Media Council of Canada during a campaign stop on June 18, 2004,
in Mississauga, Ontario.
Mr.
Thomas Saras, President of the Council, introduced Mr. Martin to the group
as not only a great finance minister, but also a staunch defender of
minority rights.
In
what was a historic first for any Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin
met with the national ethnic press to bring his message of multicultural
inclusion in a new, ever-more prosperous Canada. Prime Minister Martin
spoke of how Canada has a much richer perspective on the world because of
its vibrant multicultural community.
The
prime minister showed his compassion and understanding for Canada’s
multicultural community, and outlined his plans to include that community
as Canada prepares for the 21st century.
“What
we have done in this country is essentially create a new identity,” said
Mr. Martin. “Where other countries have 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 developed a new identity. It's
an identity with a much richer perspective on what the world is all
about.”
“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,” Mr. Saras said in his introduction.
Mr.
Saras added that Mr. Martin has been more than just a holder of the public
purse.
“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 TV fighting for those
rights on our behalf” during the televised debates, the Council
President said. “Thank you for your stand the other day at the
debate.”
Mr.
Saras explained how Mr. Martin’s father, Paul Martin Sr., had a great
influence on his son and taught him the value of the multicultural
community.
“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 multiculturalism and, of course, as they ushered in
the national Medicare,” said Mr. Saras.
Mr.
Martin told the roundtable about how his father was driven to pass the
Citizenship Act for two reasons. The first came after he visited a war
cemetery in Dieppe France, where Canadians – who had emigrated from all
over the world and fought for this country – were buried. And secondly,
he was influenced by the huge wave of immigrants that lay roots in Mr.
Martin’s hometown of Windsor.
“I
grew up in a city where 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,” said Martin.
Mr. Martin also spoke of his experience as finance minister and prime
minister when he sat at the table with counterparts who have different
perspectives on the world.
“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,” he said.
It
is from that unique vantage point that Mr. Martin wants to forge
Canada’s role in the world as one of peace and nation-building. His plan
includes concrete measures to further integrate new Canadians and members
of the multicultural community into his forward-looking agenda.
As
he told the roundtable: 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,” he
said.
The
prime minister praised the ethnic media for being the voice of hundreds of
thousands of Canadians, in many different languages. He vowed to ensure
the vitality of minority language media.
During
the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, Mr. Martin confronted a
variety of issues raised by the members of the National Ethnic
Press and Media Council of Canada.
On
Immigration, Mr. Martin admitted that Canada has been unable to process
its current commitment for immigration levels of new Canadians, but he is
committed to changing that. He said he wants to see immigration in Canada
to surpass 1% of the population per year for at least the next three
years, and he expressed his determination to hit that target.
The
Liberal government plans to increase the number of immigration officers to
address the backlog of people trying to enter Canada.
On
accreditation of foreign-trained doctors, if elected, the Liberals would
also commit $75 million towards1,000 foreign professionals to qualify to
work in Canada and to offer them more residency spots at hospitals. This
also includes a plan to share more information about the credential
process with professionals before they immigrate.
Also
promising is the fact that the prime minister has been meeting with major
engineering and industrial firms in the country to talk about possible tax
incentives that will allow these companies to bring qualified engineers
and other foreign-trained professionals into the country to fill the
shortage.
“And
if their credentials have to be brought up to snuff then let's do that,”
he said.
Mr.
Martin was asked why he believes the strong multicultural society of
Quebec has not been able to sway Quebecers away from separatism. The prime
minister replied that, in fact, ethnic Canadians have contributed to a
strong sense of nationalism, both across the country and in Quebec.
“We
don't have separatism in Quebec because of the multicultural communities
in Quebec,” he said.
He
went on to tell a heartwarming story about an immigrant woman who attended
one of the debates that preceded the last referendum in Quebec.
The elderly woman told her story after being told by a separatist that “this is not your country” because she wasn’t born in Canada. The woman went on to explain how much she sacrificed by leaving her homeland and settling in Canada. She said there is a gulf between her and her Canadian-born children because of a language barrier and because her children don’t understand the culture of her homeland. “And I’ve cried myself to sleep over that,”, “so don’t tell me that this is not my home” the woman said.
“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,” Mr. Martin concluded.
On
another question, the prime minister made a promise to look into the fact
that there is a shortage of federal government advertising in the ethnic
press.
“There
ought to be a reasonable allocation of government advertising. 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. I would be quite
prepared to meet with you in July. 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,” he said.
Another
member of the Council asked the prime minister about Canada’s
cooperation with Russia, to which Mr. Martin responded that after meeting
with president Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit recently, the two countries
will meet this summer to revive talks over a mutually beneficial economic
development framework.
“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. 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 I said, look, let's give it life. And he agreed.
So we've agreed to meet this summer on that,” said Mr. Martin.
Mr. Martin also promised to deal with concerns over the old Chinese head tax, provided that the Chinese-Canadian community reaches a consensus on how it should be done. He promised that parliamentarians will continue to work on legislative discussion on how the federal government can take the appropriate actions and compensate Chinese-Canadians for the tax that came in the early part of the last century.
“I
think we all recognize the need to deal with it. The problem is …
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…come up with a common way
of dealing with this issue, and we will move,” he said.
Finally, on another question by a member of the Council the prime minister promised to use his international influence to see if Canada can play a role in the peace process in Sri Lanka on behalf of the estimated 300,000 Tamil-Canadians living in Canada.
“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. I (only) want to get involved here
if we can advance the process, if we can be a positive force. Whether it's
in Sri Lanka or anywhere, we would want to be that positive force,” he
said.
President
Thomas Saras expressed his appreciation to Mr. Martin.
“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,” he said.
“We
are encouraged by your balanced approach to government and your tenacity
to get things done. We know you will. 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.
“We
wish you the greatest success on June 28th and look forward to welcoming
you back in the future with us,” Mr. Saras said.
The
prime minister welcomed the opportunity to meet again in the future with
the Council.
“I
happen to think that the ethnic media is very, very important, very
important,” said Mr. Martin. He
then welcomed members of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of
Canada present for a photo session with him.
