Good morning. As I’m sure you know, one of my leadership campaign’s fundamental principles is freedom.

Conservatives believe in the freedom of the marketplace as the basis for human prosperity. It is also the basis for technological and societal advancement.

There is no clearer demonstration of this principle than in the impact that free trade has had on the world.  Both in terms of improving economic outcomes, and increasing freedom.

Conservatives have always had a strong record on free trade. Conservatives negotiated the historic North American Free Trade Agreement. 

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper was first elected as Prime Minister, Canada had free trade deals with five countries.  After his time in office, Canada had reached deals with 51 countries.

In order for Canada’s economy to be successful we must grow our trade relationships. We can no longer solely rely on our ties to the United States.

This is why our Government signed free trade deals with the European Union and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Clearly, the Trudeau Government must stop delaying and ratify these agreements.

But more must be done to expand Canada’s global economic reach.

According to the International Monetary Fund, China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest economy.

I was pleased to be part of a Conservative Government that recognized this trend and adopted several measures to deepen our relations with this market.

Our Conservative Government achieved:

The first Chinese currency trading hub in the Americas;

An agreement which forms the legal basis for protecting Canadian investments in the Chinese market;

The “Canada-China Economic Complementarities Study”, which is the initial roadmap for launching free trade negotiations;

Securing Saskatchewan uranium sales to the Chinese market;

Allowing Chinese nationals to travel to Canada for leisure and allowing Canadian tourism operators to advertise in China; and

Expanded market access for Canadian beef products.

Today, we face an open invitation from China to launch free trade negotiations. This is an opportunity.

Justin Trudeau has decided to take a “go-slow” approach to trade with China. This will not help build Canada’s economy.

Consistent engagement – not hesitant engagement – means launching free trade negotiations now.

Otherwise, Canadian exports to China will continue to face tariffs in all sectors. Our competitors will enter the Chinese market tariff free and push Canadians out.

The pork farmer from Quebec will continue to face a tariff wall, and will be priced out of the Chinese market by Australian pork. 

The same story is true across all sectors, whether it is the beef farmer from Alberta, the technology producer from Ontario, or the mineral exporter from Yukon.

Canadian consumers will also face higher prices on goods imported from China.

This is particularly concerning for low income families who purchase a higher percentage of goods imported from China. 

Competitively priced imports not only benefit consumers at the retail level, they also reduce the input costs for Canadian manufacturing and make our economy more competitive.

The advantages of free trade explain why countries like Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland have concluded free trade agreements with China.

It is why countries like Israel and Norway are currently in free trade negotiations.

If I am elected Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and ultimately Prime Minister of Canada, I will seek to expand trade.

First, I will take all necessary steps to ensure that the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade agreement with Europe are ratified immediately. 

I will expedite the current negotiations for a Canada-India Free Trade Agreement, and ensure that free trade negotiations are launched with Britain.

And the cornerstone of my plan for trade will be to immediately launch formal negotiations with China to secure a Canada-China Free Trade Agreement.

It is estimated that a Canada-China Free Trade Agreement would expand Canadian exports by $7.7 billion annually, increase Canadian household income by $5.7 billion annually, and create 25,000 well paying Canadian jobs.

It would also pave the way for deeper people-to-people relations that is important for many Canadians, particularly for those of Sino-Canadian origin.

Of course, we would not be signing any deal. There must be strict rules to ensure that the Chinese government will not raise indirect barriers that contradict the spirit of free trade. Any deal must clearly be in Canada’s national interest.

Those negotiations will be tough – but Conservatives know how to negotiate free-trade agreements.

Many Canadians, and many Conservatives, myself included, remain concerned about China’s record on the rule-of-law, labour, the environment, relations with its Asian neighbours, and on human rights. 

While there are no easy answers to fix these problems overnight, disengagement or hesitant engagement with China will not give Canadians a credible voice for reform and progress on these issues.

Consistent engagement will allow Canada to work more constructively with China to address these concerns.

Human rights will be better served by discussions with a partner that China takes seriously because their success is tied to our success.

We already trade for tens of billions of dollars every year with the Chinese. We can either deepen this relationship and benefit from it, or lose an opportunity and let the rest of the world exploit it.

Earlier this year, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall took the strong position of supporting free trade with China – and he was supported by all the Premiers in Western Canada.

It is a principled position that is supported by principled Conservatives. 

Because in the end, more free trade means more freedom and more prosperity.

Merci beaucoup.  Thank you very much.  I would be happy to take any questions.

———————————————-

Maxime Bernier is only candidate who can bring real free trade to Canada.

OTTAWA – For Maxime Bernier, the new Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) to be signed today in Toronto is a far cry from what Canadians should expect, 150 years after our Constitution outlawed trade barriers between provinces.
 
“Of course it’s a step in the right direction. Like stopping at STOP signs half the time instead of never, or driving though a village at 70 km/h instead of 100 km/h. It’s still unacceptable and a clear violation of rules. And it still means there will be accidents.”
 
And we know who the victims will be, declared Mr. Bernier, who announced exactly one year ago that he would seek the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, with “Respecting our Constitution” as one of the key planks in his platform. “The victims will continue to be business people trying to expand their market in other provinces, workers being prevented to work as they move within their own country, and all consumers having to pay more than they should for fewer products.”
 
A recent Senate report estimated that interprovincial barriers cost Canada’s economy as much as $50 billion to $130 billion each year. The CFTA still contains hundreds of pages of exceptions to the general rule that trade should be freed. It excludes major sectors such as alcohol, products under supply management, energy, forestry, financial services and a host of others.
 
“It’s frankly pathetic that provinces were under pressure to liberalize some areas because the recent signing of a free trade agreement with Europe will make it easier for European companies to do business here than for Canadian companies,” said Bernier. “150 years after Confederation, it’s a shame that we still don’t have real free trade within Canada.”
 
If he is elected leader and prime minister, the Beauce MP has proposed to establish an Economic Freedom Commission with the power to investigate breaches of article 121 of the Constitution by the provinces, to recommend arbitration, to help citizens and businesses prosecute their case, or to initiate legal action on its own.
 
“The problem has not been solved with this agreement. We shouldn’t be following constitutional rules only half of the time. Ottawa’s has a duty to apply the rules for internal commerce and I will take the necessary measures to apply them as prime minister,” concluded Mr. Bernier.

Canadian Firearms laws are broken, and I want to fix them.

At the whim of a bureaucrat, firearms are assigned new classifications.

Legally purchased firearms are being made illegal, even though no laws have changed.

This needs to stop.

The firearms laws are so complicated, and so convoluted, that they have become the perfect example of injustice in the name of justice.

To fix this, I propose we replace the current Firearms Act with clear legislation based on reason, not on fear.

Firearms ownership is part of our shared Canadian heritage. We are a country founded on the fur trade. This needs to be recognized.

I also recognize that we need to protect public safety and avoid the excesses that exist south of the border.

There are three main areas to look at when considering firearms legislation. Licensing; classification of firearms; and magazine sizes.

I do not propose that we replace our current licensing system. Instead, we should ensure that firearms safety courses are more readily available, especially in rural and remote areas.

I will double the length of firearms licenses from 5 to 10 years.

Firearms license-holders are automatically subjected to daily background checks. If a firearms license-holder commits a crime, his or her license is revoked. There is no need to go through the renewal process every 5 years.

We need to provide clear, non-arbitrary legislation for what constitutes a non-restricted, restricted, or prohibited firearm.

Firearms should not be classified based on how they look, but on how they function.

I propose the following classifications:

Non-Restricted:
(a) a firearm that is not a prohibited or restricted firearm.

Prohibited:
(a) a fully-automatic firearm,
(b) a firearm that is adapted from a rifle or shotgun, whether by sawing, cutting or any other alteration, and that, as so adapted, is less than 660 mm in length.
(c) a firearm that is listed as prohibited prior to June 20, 2016.

Restricted:
(a) a firearm that is not a prohibited firearm,
(b) a handgun that is not a prohibited firearm,
(c) a firearm that is designed or adapted to be fired when reduced to a length of less than 660 mm by folding, telescoping or otherwise.

This is in line with the Simplified Classification System, adopted by Conservative members at the Policy Convention in Vancouver last year.

The current regulation of magazine sizes is irrational. Our internationally competitive shooters are forced to practice with magazines below standard capacity.

This makes no sense. It’s clear that those who are not inclined to follow the law will not be deterred by having to remove a rivet from a magazine.

My proposal would repeal the ineffective, and frankly nonsensical, magazine capacity restrictions.

The classification of firearms should not change by the whim of the RCMP, or cabinet. It should require a change in law through Parliament to re-classify a firearm.

To respect our Canadian tradition of firearms ownership, and the principle of fairness, I would have the Canadian government reimburse all firearms owners for their loss of property resulting from the implementation of Bill C-68, and any subsequent legislation that caused the confiscation of their legally purchased firearms.

This policy, like all my policies, is based on freedom and responsibility, fairness and respect.

I believe it is the right answer for firearms legislation in Canada.

Although they were presented by their supporters as measures to protect minorities from discrimination, a motion and a bill being debated in Parliament could seriously threaten free speech in our country. Having received many requests to clarify my position on these two issues, here are my reasons to oppose them. 

M-103

Two weeks ago, I tweeted that I opposed M-103 (http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/Iqra-Khalid(88849)/Motions?sessionId=152&documentId=8661986 ), a motion tabled by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, whose goal is to “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.” The motion is set to be debated and come to a vote in the coming days.

M-103 is not a bill: It’s not going to change any of the country’s laws or going to affect freedom of speech by itself. It’s just a motion, which expresses an opinion of Members of Parliament. That doesn’t mean there are no problems with it.

First of all, although it condemns all forms of religious discrimination, the motion only mentions specifically one religion, Islam. I don’t believe that is appropriate. More importantly, the term « islamophobia » is not defined in the motion.

If it means hate speech, intolerance and violence targeted at our peaceful and law-abiding fellow citizens who happen to be of Muslim faith, I am sure there is unanimity in favour of denouncing it. We were reminded recently with the killing at a mosque in Quebec City how ugly this form of intolerance can be.

There are already laws against this however. And that definition should not be taken for granted. There is a current in Islam, and not necessarily limited to radical islamists, that says nobody should criticize that religion or make fun of it. Just remember the controversy about the prophet Mohammed cartoons some years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy ).

In a recent column in the National Post (http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-how-long-until-my-honest-criticism-of-islamism-constitutes-a-speech-crime-in-canada ), columnist Barbara Kay raises a point that I too find troubling:

What I fear is that MP Iqra Khalid, who tabled M-103, may understand Islamophobia to mean what its original promoters, the 56 Muslim-majority bloc of the United Nations known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), say it means. The OIC wants to see the Cairo Declaration on Human rights become the template for Islamophobia policies everywhere. The Cairo Declaration asserts the superiority of Islam and defines freedom of speech according to Shariah law, which considers any criticism of Muhammad blasphemy.

The OIC is inching ever closer to realizing that goal. Many EU countries are seeking to criminalize Islamophobia by using “racism and xenophobia,” “public order” or “denigration” laws, which are essentially proxies for the Cairo Declaration.

Is this motion a first step towards restricting our right to criticize Islam? Given the international situation, and the fact that jihadi terrorism is today the most important threat to our security, I think this is a serious concern we have to take into account.

Free speech is a fundamental Canadian value. We should reaffirm everyone’s right to believe in and criticize whatever belief they want, whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, atheism, or any other.

For this reason, I will vote against M-103 unless it is amended to remove the word “islamophobia.” And I encourage my Conservative colleagues to do the same.

C-16

Bill C-16 was passed by the House of commons last October and is now being debated in the Senate (https://openparliament.ca/bills/42-1/C-16/ ). This Bill amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. It also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda to people who are distinguished by gender identity or expression.

I voted in favour of this Bill in the fall, because I am opposed to anyone being subjected to hate and being discriminated against on the basis of being part of any identifiable group.

However, in addition to the many Canadians who have discussed this issue with me, last week, I had the opportunity to chat with University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson about this legislation and the consequences it will have for free speech.  And frankly, I was appalled.

Professor Peterson has said publicly that he refuses to use various pronouns such as “they” (not to refer to several people, but as a singular pronoun), “zir,” “hir,” or “ze” instead of “he” and “she.” These are pronouns that “non-binary” students, who refuse the usual categories of masculine and feminine, want used to describe them.

Because of his refusal, Prof. Peterson has received warning letters from the university, which says it amounts to discrimination against minorities. ( http://thevarsity.ca/2016/10/24/u-of-t-letter-asks-jordan-peterson-to-respect-pronouns-stop-making-statements/ )

There has been a proliferation of groups that claim various sexual identities in recent years (http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2013/01/a-comprehensive-list-of-lgbtq-term-definitions/#sthash.n0ppMTvO.dpbs ). Some of these groups are not fighting for equality of rights and respect for sexual minorities. They are radical left-wing activists trying to deconstruct traditional social norms and impose their marginal perspective on everyone, including by forcing us to change the way we talk. And they seem to have an undue influence on campuses across North America, including here in Canada.

Free speech is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Canadians. Prof. Peterson believes that if adopted, C-16 will, in conjunction with the Ontario Human Rights Code, become a clear threat to this right.

Any time a right is violated, our Constitution demands that such a violation can be reasonably justified in a free and democratic society. The Supreme Court has interpreted that in case law and developed what is called the Oakes test, which says that any violation of our rights must be proportional to the harm it seeks to correct.

C-16 does not meet that test. It could force Canadians to restructure the way they talk and say things they do not believe.

This crazy trend seems to be proliferating outside of universities too. Just a few weeks ago, management at Quebec’s Public Automobile Insurance Plan forbid its employees to use “Monsieur” or “Madame” when addressing its millions of clients after one transgender client made a complaint. Although in the process of becoming a woman, she was addressed as “Monsieur” because she still has a masculine name in official documents. (http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/01/25/la-saaq-interdit-a-des-employes-de-dire-monsieur-ou-madame )

We must protect minority groups against hate and discrimination.  But we also must ensure that we protect our most fundamental freedoms—including our freedom to speak our mind and to use common language without fearing legal consequences. 

I regret my decision to vote for Bill C-16.  If the vote were held again today, I would vote against it. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to stop it from becoming law. And if it does become law, as the next Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, I will repeal it.

Last Saturday, at the debate in Halifax, other candidates accused me of abandoning Atlantic Canada. They said that my proposal to freeze the equalization budget until we review its funding and the way the money is being distributed is going to hurt the region economically.

Of course, in the short term, some people might not like this idea. But transferring money from the rest of Canada to the Atlantic has been going on for decades. And if we do nothing, it will likely continue for several more decades. Shouldn’t we be thinking about solutions beyond the short term?

The question we should be asking is: How can we create the best conditions for Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs to create jobs and wealth? (Including in Newfoundland & Labrador, which hasn’t received equalization money for some years because of revenues from offshore oil, but still has a weak economy and very high unemployment.)

Equalization should not be a permanent program to keep whole regions and provinces poorer than the rest of the country. Unfortunately, that’s what it does.

Various studies have shown that it encourages the growth of the public sector in the recipient provinces, which bids away resources and workers from the private sector and weakens it. It encourages provincial governments to keep taxes high and to intervene more in their economies. They don’t have as much incentive to make their economies more competitive because more private sector growth will lead to less equalization money.

Bigger governments, less competitive private businesses: That’s the recipe for economic stagnation.

Kevin O’Leary said last week that he would “force” provinces to adopt some policies that he favours, such as developing natural gas in Nova Scotia. And that he would be “very punitive” if they don’t comply. This is a totally arrogant and reckless approach, one that will bring back constitutional quarrels between Ottawa and the provinces.

My approach is not to impose Ottawa’s will on the provinces, but rather to reform the equalization program so that it provides the right incentives for economic development. I will respect the provinces and our Constitution.

A second very important change that needs to be made to help Atlantic Canada become more prosperous is to eliminate interprovincial trade and labour barriers. It’s a shame that after 150 years, our country is still not a unified market.

If you are a consumer, you can pay a fine for crossing a provincial border with too many beers, as happened to Gérard Comeau in New Brunswick. If you are a worker, you may need a new licence, or see your qualifications not recognized, when you go to work in another province. And if you are an entrepreneur, you may need more permits, have to go through bureaucratic loopholes, or simply face a closed door, when you try to export to another province.

A Senate committee estimated that these barriers may cost our economy up to $130 billion a year. That’s almost half the federal budget!

But it’s even more costly for small provinces with tiny markets that are more dependent on trade. They cannot benefit from the economies of scale of a larger market. It’s more difficult for their businesses to grow. And costlier for their consumers who can’t buy stuff produced elsewhere.

The Atlantic Provinces Economic Council released a report last October explaining why the region can’t afford these barriers. The study says removing all trade barriers between provinces could create gains as high as 3.3% of GDP, but that the gains would be more than double that for the Atlantic provinces at 7.6% of GDP.

Our Constitution says these barriers should not exist. Provinces have been talking and negotiating for decades. But why should we expect those who created the problem to solve it? We need a strong central government to systematically deal with this problem. I propose to create an Economic Freedom Commission with the power to take provinces to court when their regulations infringe upon your freedom.

Atlantic Canadians need real solutions, not paternalism. Instead of pandering to those who like the status quo, or adopting an authoritarian approach, we should be supporting those who are fighting for change. Like the people at the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax who have been proposing sound policies for many years. Like Conservatives who are calling for less government and more free-market solutions at the provincial level.

That’s the vision I’m offering Atlantic Canadians, based on freedom, responsibility, fairness and respect. And I am hopeful many of them will embrace it so that Atlantic Canada can one day take its rightful place among the prosperous regions of our country. 

When it was started in 1957, Canada’s equalization program had a noble intention: To ensure that Canadians from coast to coast have a similar level of service from their provincial government, whether they live in poorer or richer provinces. It was seen as a way to unite the country.

Unfortunately, that is not how it turned out. The program has had numerous unintended consequences. It is unfair and inefficient in multiple ways. And it is disuniting Canadians instead of uniting them.

During the past ten months, I have travelled across the country and spoken to people in all provinces. Many told me that because of this program, they feel that the federal government is not on their side. They feel that it creates tension between certain provinces. And that it discourages growth and necessary economic reforms.

Let me give you a few examples. With its strong economy and strong energy sector, Alberta has been for years a net contributor to the equalization program. Its citizens pay federal taxes to fund it, but the province never receives any of it.

However, Alberta’s economy has been severely contracting for two years in part because of the collapse in oil prices. Yet, the province will still not get a penny from equalization this year and next year.

The equalization formula uses two-year-old data and calculates an average of fiscal capacity over three years. Albertans are suffering but are still forced to help other provinces with economies in better shape fund their social programs. This is unfair.

Here is another example of unfairness and inefficiency. The equalization formula uses five criteria to determine a province’s fiscal capacity, including energy revenues. However, it doesn’t treat all forms of energy revenues the same way.

In the case of hydroelectricity, it does not use the market value of hydro power produced in Quebec and Manitoba, but rather the subsidized rate at which it is sold in local markets. Because of this, the two provinces appear poorer than they actually are and get more equalization money than they should.

These provinces are therefore encouraged to continue their policy of subsidizing their local customers instead of getting the full value for their energy, for example by exporting it. This whole situation is a mess from the point of view of good public policy. It’s unfair and inefficient.

There is a myth that equalization at least has the benefit of helping have-not provinces economically. But the opposite is true. It has created a poverty trap that prevents them from developing to their full potential.

I would argue that the biggest victims of the equalization program are in fact the citizens of provinces that have been on the receiving end for decades: Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI.

Quebec is the province that received the largest amount of money, $10 billion out of a total of $18 billion this year. But that’s because it has a much larger population. The other four actually get more money per capita and are even more dependent on federal support.

This economic reality is well documented. Think tanks in Canada, such as the Montreal Economic Institute, the Fraser Institute, the Frontier Centre and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies have analysed it in detail in various studies.

These studies have shown that equalization money encourages the growth of the public sector in the recipient provinces, which bids away resources and workers from the private sector and weakens it.

Equalization money encourages recipient provinces to keep taxes high and to intervene more in their economies. They don’t have as much incentive to make their economies more competitive because more private sector growth will lead to less equalization money.

The system is similar to badly designed welfare programs that used to discourage recipients from working, because they would then lose all their benefits and would be worse off than if they stayed on welfare. That’s what we call a poverty trap. These programs were reformed in the 1990s in the US and Canada and since then, the number of people on welfare has been drastically reduced.

It’s time to put an end to this unfair and inefficient equalization program.

It’s time to stop rewarding provincial governments for not adopting better economic policies.

It’s time to give hope and support to Conservatives fighting for free-market reforms and less government intervention in these provinces. Sending more money simply helps those who argue that there is no problem and who favour the status quo.

As leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and prime minister, I will propose first of all to freeze the envelope devoted to the equalization program.

Second, I will set up a parliamentary committee with the goal of reviewing that envelope, examining the current formula and proposing a new one. That new formula should avoid the welfare trap and perverse effects identified by economists. It should encourage provincial governments to take responsibility for their bad decisions, adopt the right pro-growth economic policies, and reduce their dependency on federal money, instead of the opposite.

Kevin O’Leary said earlier this week that he will “force” provinces to adopt some policies that he favours, such as developing natural gas in Nova Scotia. And that he will be “very punitive” if they don’t comply.

This is a totally arrogant and reckless approach, one that will bring back constitutional quarrels between Ottawa and the provinces. It’s similar to the Liberal approach of imposing specific conditions to provinces on how to spend the money for health transfers, even though Ottawa has no jurisdiction in health care. But even worse.

My approach is not to impose Ottawa’s will on the provinces, but rather to reform the equalization program so that it provides the right incentives for economic development. My approach will respect the provinces and our Constitution. My approach will respect taxpayers from across the country who fund this program and demand results.

When I launched my leadership campaign last May, I made it clear that I would base all my policies on four key principles: Freedom, fairness, responsibility, and respect.

I have already announced a plan to lower taxes on individuals and corporations, to reduce the burden of regulation and to remove barriers to trade within Canada. With these policies, the so-called “have-not” provinces will have all the tools to unleash their economies.

This will not only benefit citizens in these provinces. It will make all Canadians more prosperous. And instead of breeding resentment between givers and receivers, it will make our country more united.

Thank you.

OTTAWA – Today, Maxime Bernier announced that he will bring fairness to Canada’s system of equalization payments to provinces.

Rather than continuing the welfare trap that our system of equalization has become, Bernier proposes to create an environment that encourages provinces to succeed and thrive, rather than relying on aid from other parts of the country.

Bernier’s plan has two key components:

• Immediately freeze the envelope of taxpayer dollars dedicated to equalization to stop the ever-increasing spending.
• Form a Parliamentary Committee dedicated to reviewing the equalization formula, proposing common sense solutions that will give provinces the right incentives to grow their economies.

These changes will help promote pro-growth changes in provinces, without imposing the will of Ottawa in areas of provincial jurisdiction.

KEY MAXIME BERNIER QUOTES:

“Equalization money encourages recipient provinces to keep taxes high and to intervene more in their economies. They don’t have as much incentive to make their economies more competitive because more private sector growth will lead to less equalization money.”

“The system is similar to badly designed welfare programs that used to discourage recipients from working, because they would then lose all their benefits and would be worse off than if they stayed on welfare. That’s what we call a poverty trap”

“My approach will respect the provinces and our Constitution. My approach will respect taxpayers from across the country who fund this program and demand results”

Since the beginning of this leadership race, I have proposed several policies with the general goal of reducing the size of the federal government and focusing its interventions on its core functions.

Everyone understands what it means to have a smaller government when it comes to economic policy. But what about foreign policy?

The principles are actually the same. We can have a foreign policy that is based on the perspectives and interests of politicians, bureaucrats, international NGOs and special interest groups. A foreign policy that tries to attain unrealistic goals, that focuses on image and marketing, that ineffectively intervenes everywhere, and is frankly a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Or we can have a foreign policy entirely focused on the core goals of protecting the security and prosperity of Canadians, a policy where no resources are wasted on symbolic gestures that have no effect on the life of the average Canadian.

As Canada’s former Foreign Affairs Minister, I witnessed first-hand how the international relations establishment has a set of priorities that are very different from those of ordinary Canadians.

They care about attending global conferences in trendy cities and getting photographed in the company of important foreign leaders. They worry about prestige and glamour, about Canada’s presence on the international scene even if that simply means having a tiny influence on events in parts of the world where we have almost no interest.

Whether it’s a bunch of bureaucrats discussing how to spend billions of dollars to kick-starting Canada’s economy; or a bunch of bureaucrats discussing how to spend billions of dollars on international organizations and development aid in other countries; it’s all the same. They are mostly furthering their own interests and wasting a lot of taxpayers’ money.

The Trudeau government’s foreign policy is a perfect example of this type of policy disconnected from the interests of Canadians. It is based on the same principles as its economic policy: The more the government intervenes, the more money it spends, the more structures and programs it creates, the more publicity it gets, the better it is.

The Liberals claim that since their election, “Canada is back” on the international scene. You bet it is! Just like it’s back in the economic sphere with its $30-billion deficit!

Only a month after his election in November 2015, Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would contribute $2.65 billion over the next five years to help developing countries tackle climate change.

This government is not only going to make us poorer by burdening our economy with a carbon tax and costlier regulations. It’s going to make us even poorer by sending billions of dollars to other countries for the same purpose.

That’s in addition to billions of dollars every year in development assistance that Canadian taxpayers are sending to various countries, a budget that the Liberals have promised to increase.

On security issues, the Trudeau government decided last year to scale down our military involvement with our allies against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Yet, fighting radical Islamic terrorists is directly linked to the security of Canadians.

Meanwhile, the government announced last summer that it would send 600 Canadian troops and spend half a billion dollars on a peacekeeping mission in Africa.

Canada has no strategic interest in that region. The conflicts there have no impact on our security. And it’s not even clear that there is any peace to keep, but the Liberals are trying to avoid this debate.

There is no reason to waste that money and to risk the lives of Canadian soldiers. No reason, except, from the point of the view of the Trudeau government, showing the foreign affairs establishment of other countries that “Canada is back” and lobbying for a seat at the United Nations Security Council.

For the Liberals, it’s more important to show off on the international stage than to protect the security and prosperity of Canadians.

We learned two weeks ago that senior foreign affairs bureaucrats even held a meeting to discuss how to use the Prime Minister’s image and his personal appeal to sell the world on the merits of the country’s return to UN peacekeeping missions. This is not a foreign policy based on the interests of Canadians; this is the low politics of selfie diplomacy!

As Prime Minister, I will ensure our country’s foreign policy will be refocused on the security and prosperity of Canadians.

First, my government will continue to work closely with our allies to ensure peace and security, especially against radical Islamic terrorism. We will only get involved in foreign conflicts when we have a clear strategic interest in doing so and when the security of Canadians is directly impacted.

We are not going to try and please the foreign affairs establishment and the United Nations, a dysfunctional organisation which for years has disproportionately focused its activities on condemning Israel as if it were the source of most conflicts in the world. Last year for example, the UN General Assembly adopted 20 resolutions targeting Israel, while passing one each about the human rights situation in North Korea, Syria, and Iran.

Second, my government’s foreign policy will be focused on liberalizing trade with as many countries and regions of the world as possible. This is not only the best way to ensure our prosperity, but also to help other countries develop and get richer, and to ensure a more peaceful world.

Third, my government will review the $5 billion that Canada spends every year on international assistance programs.

Our refocused international assistance will centre on core humanitarian efforts to fight global health crises and respond to emergencies such as major conflicts and natural disasters. Canada has to show solidarity and do its part to help when populations are dying and suffering in countries that don’t have the means to save them.

However, every year, we spend billions of dollars funding job training, farming technology, infrastructure building and various other programs to help develop other countries’ economies. We will phase out this development aid, for which there is no moral or economic efficiency argument.

Some First Nations communities in Canada have levels of poverty and basic services comparable to those of third world countries. There are low-income families in our country that pay taxes on their modest earnings. Instead of sending billions of dollars to other countries, we should use that money to cut taxes or help Canadians in need, here in Canada.

The case for development aid is extremely weak. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty in the world in the past few decades. However, there is no evidence that this was brought about by development aid.

Countries such as China, India, Vietnam and many others that are fast growing out of poverty did so because they got rid of their communist and socialist economic policies. They got richer because they adopted free-market policies, liberalized trade and private property rights, even if only imperfectly.

There is a direct link between the level of economic freedom and the level of development. This has been demonstrated without any doubt by various studies, including the economic freedom index of the Fraser Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

Countries that remain poor are those where governments are still crushing private initiative. Until they liberalize their economy and free their citizens, no amount of development aid will make a difference. On the contrary, it creates a cycle of dependency and often helps these governments stay in power.

Big government doesn’t solve problems, it creates problems. This is true in foreign policy as it is true in economic policy.

Under my leadership, Canada is not going to follow the received wisdom of the international relations establishment.

We are not going to send our soldiers to dangerous places where we have no strategic interests just to please the international bureaucracy at the United Nations.

We are not going to waste taxpayers’ money on development aid just because other countries do it.

The role of government is to protect its citizens and to allow them to flourish and prosper. This is going to be the focus of our action when I am Prime Minister.

Thank you.

Immigration has become a very contentious issue in politics. We’ve seen in recent years the rise of anti-immigration parties in Europe. It featured prominently in the U.S. presidential election. And it has become part of the debate in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race.

Canada has always been a country largely open to immigration, because of its vastness and its relative youth. I believe that by and large, our immigration policy has been very successful. But we are not immune to the conflicts and social tensions happening elsewhere.

We can avoid these tensions if we stay away from ideological extremes and go back to a fundamental principle: The overarching objective of Canada’s immigration policy should be to fulfill the economic needs of our country.

In particular, it should answer the needs of sectors where there is a scarcity of manpower with specialized skills; and in more general terms contribute to increasing the number of younger workers in a society that is fast aging.

Too little immigration means we will not get as much of these economic benefits as we could. But too much immigration also has its dangers.

Our immigration policy should not aim to forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of Canada, as radical proponents of multiculturalism want. The vast majority of Canadians rightly expect immigrants to learn about our history and culture, master one of our official languages, and adopt widely shared Canadian values such as equality of men and woman, tolerance for diversity and respect for Canadian law.

Immigrants are expected to integrate in our society, not to live in ghettos and try to replicate the way of life of their country of origin in Canada.

Of course, Canadian society is also transformed by immigration, as it has for centuries. But this has to be done organically and gradually. When it happens too fast, it creates social tensions and conflicts, and provokes a political backlash, as we can see today in several countries.

This is why I am opposed to increasing the annual intake of immigrants from 250,000 to 300,000, as the Liberal government has announced.

I am even more opposed to the proposal made by the government’s advisory council a few months ago to increase it to 450,000, which Liberal Immigration Minister John McCallum said could be adopted at some point in the future.

At too high a level, immigration ceases to be a tool to economically benefit Canadians, and it turns instead into a burden. It becomes essentially a policy of social engineering for ideological purposes.

On the basis of these principles, here are the general policies I intend to pursue if I become Prime Minister.

Given that the main objective of immigration is to fulfill the economic needs of Canada, I would bring back the number from 300,000 to 250,000 as it was on average under the Harper government.

I would streamline the process for hiring specialized workers abroad. I would also put slightly more emphasis on economic immigration and slightly reduce the categories of family reunification and refugees.

It is important for New Canadians to be able to reunite with their families. This is already a large part of our immigration policy and will continue to be so. As well, Canada has to play its part in welcoming refugees from troubled areas of the world. But these two categories of immigrants bring less economic benefits to Canada than the category of economic immigrants. Welcoming refugees is actually very expensive.

To ensure our security, I would increase resources for CSIS, the RCMP and Canadian Immigration and Citizenship to do background checks on all classes of immigrants, including more face-to-face interviews if deemed necessary.

And finally, I would stop our reliance on the United Nations for refugee selection. Civil society groups that work on the ground have a much better grasp of who could successfully integrate into Canada than a big international bureaucracy. We should rely instead on private sponsorship, including by faith-based organizations. The Liberals are strangling this to make room for poorly delivered state sponsorship.

My campaign is based on free markets and small government principles. I am opposed to big government policies in all spheres of life.

Preventing our businesses from hiring the immigrant manpower they need with red tape is a big government policy. At the other extreme, mass immigration that would create social tensions and is not in the interest of Canadians is also a big government policy. A government under my leadership would find an appropriate middle ground so as to unleash Canada’s economic potential.

For a sound monetary policy that protects Canadians from inflation and financial crashes

Maxime Bernier

December 15, 2016

A few weeks ago, the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance announced that they were renewing the Bank’s mandate of a 2% inflation target for another five years. This news did not get much attention.

Monetary policy is, for most people, a very technical, difficult and boring issue. That is unfortunate because it is also a crucial issue for our economic well-being. It determines the level of inflation and how much we can buy with our dollars. How much we pay for imports and for our mortgages. It also plays a key role in influencing market crashes, economic crisis, and long-term growth. 

That’s why it is very important for anybody who aspires to lead this country to have an understanding of monetary policy, and to tell the public what they plan on doing.

Inflation at 2% a year may seem small, but it means that prices double every 35 years. It means that the dollar in your pocket is buying less and less goods every year.

The reason why overall prices constantly go up is not because businesses are greedy, or because wages go up, or because the price of oil goes up. Ultimately, only the central bank is responsible for creating the conditions that cause prices to rise by printing more and more money.

As even the former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke admitted, inflation is the equivalent of a tax. Inflation eats away at our purchasing power, our revenues and our savings. It forces constant adjustments in long-term planning and distorts relative prices and investment decisions.

Most economists, including those at the Bank of Canada, are aware of this. When its mandate was previously renewed in 2011, the Bank carried several studies on the advantages of having a lower inflation rate target.

As Mark Carney, the governor at the time, said in a speech in November of that year: “The Bank’s research has generally found that the further benefits from reducing these distortions imply an optimal rate of inflation closer to, or even slightly below, zero.”

However, the bank at that time decided to stick to its 2% inflation target for one major reason: To preserve its ability to intervene more forcefully in a period of crisis.

With an inflation target of 0%, interest rates would tend to be lower in normal times than with inflation at 2%. The Bank would then have less leverage to push them even lower to stimulate the economy, because it is difficult to go below 0%. The Bank prefers to keep an inflation target higher because interest rates will also be higher and it will more ammunition to fight an economic downturn, like in 2008-2009.

That was the theory. Now, we are several years later. And we know that reducing interest rates a lot and keeping them very low doesn’t work to stimulate the economy.

We have had interest rates close to zero percent for eight years but this had no effect on growth. It did not work in Japan, which has been doing this for 25 years. It is not working in Europe either.

However, it is creating more and more distortions in the economy. Artificially low interest rates are encouraging people to borrow. The debt carried by Canadian households has reached record levels. If interest rates increased now, hundreds of thousands of Canadians would suddenly have trouble paying their mortgage.

Artificially low interest rates are also hurting savers and investors, who see very poor returns on their money. They are causing trouble for banks and insurance companies, which are forced to invest in riskier assets. They are creating bubbles in various sectors, which is exactly the reason why there was a crash in 2007.

Central banks have been saying for years now that they will eventually have to raise interest rates and go back to a normal situation. They know that keeping them very low is creating imbalances, which are getting worse day by day. But they are afraid that raising rates will provoke another major recession.

In a speech before the Economic Club in Toronto in 2010, I warned that a monetary stimulus policy would not solve our long-term problems and would on the contrary bring about another crisis. You cannot create growth and wealth simply by printing more money and encouraging people to borrow and spend, just like you don’t get richer by maxing out your credit card. The only way to create wealth is by investing more, working more and producing more.

At the time, everybody believed that very low interest rates would boost the economy. Everybody is now aware that it’s not working and that the situation has become untenable.

Canada’s former Chief Economic Analyst, Philip Cross, wrote in a recent study published by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute that “The historical record is that the stimulative policies used to end one recession sow the seeds for the next cyclical downturn.”

If monetary policy is ineffective, how than can we get out of this dead-end and prevent another major recession? Business investment has been one of the weakest areas of our economy in recent years. We should adopt policies to encourage the private sector to invest and create wealth.

Three months ago, I made a series of proposals to unleash Canada’s economy. I proposed to reduce corporate income tax from 15% to 10%. To abolish the capital gains tax. And to make permanent and extend to all sectors the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance.

This is in addition to other measures I have announced to bring more competition in the telecommunications sector, the air transportation sector, and in agriculture, as well as to cut red tape by eliminating interprovincial trade barriers. The more open our economy, and the more competition there is, the more businesses will be inclined to invest.

The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, agrees that there is little more he can do to stimulate the economy and that we should use other means than monetary policy. He is right in saying this. However, he should have stopped there.

Instead, he has spent the past year using every occasion to champion the Liberal government’s misguided plan to go into deficit and spend more taxpayers’ money.

Mr. Poloz is not only wrong about the effectiveness of this Keynesian solution. He is wrong in actively promoting it and encouraging the government fiscal policy.

The Governor of the Central Bank is a civil servant, not a politician. In April 2015, when asked by my colleague Andrew Saxton during a Finance Committee hearing to comment on the benefits of a balanced budget for the economy, Mr. Poloz answered: “It’s really not our role to comment on fiscal policy. Since we’re the central bank, I would decline that.”

He was right. He has a duty to remain impartial when it comes to the different types of fiscal policies that should be implemented. He has no business cheerleading one type of solution over another to stimulate the economy. His business is to manage the Central Bank. He has crossed a line, and I strongly suggest that he refrain in the future from such involvement into partisan politics.

To summarize: When I am elected Prime Minister in 2019, I will put an end to the ineffective deficit spending policy of the current government. I will bring back a balanced budget within two years. I will legislate tax cuts to boost private investment and stimulate the economy on a sustainable basis. And I will ask the Bank of Canada to study once again the benefits of eventually adopting a 0% inflation target when its mandate is renewed in 2021.

Thank you.