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Toronto, Ontario
June 14, 2003

Speech by the Honourable John Manley, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, to the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce

Check Against Delivery

Thank you for your very kind introduction, Mrs. Merchant.

Mr. [Kris] Krishnan, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen.

It is a great pleasure to be here in Toronto, a city which has faced tremendous challenges recently and risen to the occasion with professionalism and determination, particularly from its health care workers, who deserve to be recognized for their dedication. I am so happy to see hundreds of you here tonight, in downtown Toronto, enjoying an evening together. The Indo-Canadian community gathering here tonight is again leading the way by showing the world that Toronto is safe, ready and able to welcome conventions, tourists, and friends and family to this great city.

Speaking to you as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, I welcome this opportunity to honour the many contributions your community and your homeland have made and continue to make to Canada. Let me also take this moment to particularly congratulate those members of your community you honour here tonight. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I too salute your achievements.

Speaking to you very personally, as an individual, I welcome this opportunity as well to talk of the warm feelings I have, the wonderful memories I carry, of my visit to India in January of last year.

However, my interest in India, which is deep and long-standing, predates that trip by some time. Indeed, how could someone not be fascinated by India? A country of over a billion people, speaking 17 official languages and spanning an entire subcontinent. A land of many cultures that are so ancient, in a country that is still, in many ways, so young. A nation in which so much history has been made, and yet still holds so much potential for the future. Such a destination would be cause enough for excitement and anticipation in anyone. Unfortunately, getting there took longer than I had hoped, a situation not helped by the fact that Canadian-Indian relations had slipped into a cooling period following India’s 1998 nuclear tests.

Upon my appointment to the position of Foreign Affairs Minister on October 17, 2000, I determined that an immediate priority for this government was the revitalization of Canada-India relations. On March 20, 2001, this commitment became a reality when I announced Canada’s formal re-engagement with India. This was a great and positive step for a number of reasons. Of course, first and foremost, it paved the way for re-establishment of official relations between two great nations.

But there was another consequence, one that I will confess today-honestly and selfishly-was uppermost in my mind. You see, by re-engaging with India, the Government was also paving the way for my first visit to India, which took place in January of last year, accompanied by my wife, Judith. The purpose of my trip was professional, and on that count it was a tremendous success. But the impact it had on me went beyond the professional. It was, in many ways, very personal.

It was, as official trips usually are, all too brief, and jammed with events-in Amritsar, Delhi, Agra, Mumbai and Chennai. And all of them, I can tell you, were memorable. Everywhere, the hospitality of the Indian people was overwhelming and at every turn, it seemed, there was a new site to provoke thoughts, stir emotions or simply cause amazement.

Perhaps the most beautiful of these was the Taj Mahal. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to say that the Taj surpassed my expectations. Both Judith and I were, literally, breathless at the sight of it.

In Delhi I visited the magnificent Birla temple. Not only was the Hindu temple beautiful, but Judith and I were also honoured to receive blessings from the pandit-blessings which I hope will pay benefits in the next few months!

But perhaps the most moving destination during our trip was our visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In many ways it set the tone for the rest of our stay in India. Before entering the main temple building, we were shown the lungar hall, where food every day is prepared for thousands of people, many of them pilgrims to this holy place. On our tour of the temple complex, I saw the original writings of the Gurus, which were displayed in holy books placed throughout the building. It was an amazing experience, and regardless of your religion, I believe it is impossible to see this place and not be moved.

The last highlight I want to share with you, however, is also the most deeply personal. As some of you may know, Judith’s father was born in Chennai. Judith’s grandfather was the foreman of a foundry there. While in Chennai, we took time to go to the home where my father-in-law was born. As we visited that place, Judith had tears in her eyes. I too was moved as we visited the school in the area and walked along the street where her father used to play as a child. To visit a major industrial city like Chennai, a city of some 4 million, to take in its energy and vitality, is a moving enough experience. To see it and at the same time understand that this place was home to a member of your own family, that is to experience a profound feeling of connection. That was the feeling Judith and I experienced there. It was simply incredible.

My daughter, Becky, is going through a similar experience as we speak. She is entering her third year of veterinary medicine at the University of Guelph, and with a fellow student, she is travelling across India for two months to volunteer at different veterinary clinics. She has already interned at the National Camel Institute in Rajasthan and spent time working at a veterinary clinic in Mumbai. She is now in Kerala working with elephants. I know that this experience will change my daughter, and that’s why her mother and I supported enthusiastically her decision to go. We know how our visit to India changed us.

I have chosen today to begin with these personal reflections on India not only because of my feelings for the country, but to illustrate a point. My point is that the relationship between Canada and India was long ago transformed beyond the official conditions and protocols of state-to-state relations. I believe the relationship between the two countries is much more human than that, much more personal. I say that, of course, not because of my own ties and experiences, but rather because of yours. Today, in this country, there are approximately 1 million Canadians of Indian origin. That is, to put it another way, 1 in 30 Canadians is of Indian origin.

Over the years, there is no denying, the relations between the governments of India and Canada have had their ups and downs. But that, as they say, is only between governments. What that official story doesn’t tell is the story of tens of thousands of Indian families and friends who have journeyed thousands of miles from their place of birth to make a new home. Tens of thousands of Indians who have come to Canada-and thousands more who continue to come. Today India ranks only second to China in providing the greatest number of immigrants to Canada.

And what I find so striking about this statistic is that this is happening at a time of such great economic growth for India. Over the last decade annual growth has averaged over 6 per cent in India. In fact, for many of the most populous states that figure surpasses 8 per cent. And this has been growth with real, broad-based consequences for the people of India. Poverty rates are falling to such an extent that the United Nations Development Programme has moved India up from a low-level human development index to a middle level. The subcontinent still faces many challenges, to be sure. But India is facing those challenges revitalized, with energy, industry and imagination, the same energy, industry and imagination that her immigrants have brought to Canada.

Today the Indian economic success story has, I am proud to say, been exported to Canada’s shores. Canadians of Indian origin occupy not just our classrooms, but our boardrooms as well. In so many areas the accomplishments of Canada’s Indo-Canadian community are growing more impressive and obvious every day-in industry, in media, in the halls of government both provincially and federally and, today, at the cabinet table in Ottawa. Even in the entertainment industry. I recently had dinner with my new friend Deepa Mehta in Ottawa at High Commissioner Tripathi’s home. I loved the movie Bollywood Hollywood. Did you all see it? Please do! It’s a lot of fun.

The same small and medium-size enterprises that right now are a driving force in the Indian economy are doing the same in Canada, and many of them are driven by members of the Indo-Canadian community. Many of those successes, I am sure, are represented by people in this room, particularly the award winners we will honour tonight and those of years past. And while doing so, we must also salute the Indo-Canada Chamber for its role in making the Canada-India relationship work, whether by participating in trade missions like the one led by Pierre Pettigrew last year, through input into Focus India meetings hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and by representing its members on issues which matter to your business community.

Indeed, being here today, we all share in a great and multi-faceted success story. If you have come from India, you have arrived from one of the world’s fastest-growing sources of economic energy. A perfect example was when I met with Ratan Tata and the Ambani family during my stop in Mumbai. They are so impressive, such dedicated and enterprising families.

And you have arrived in a country that is capitalizing on exactly that kind of energy which I witnessed in Mumbai. While in the midst of a global economic slump, Canada’s economy continues to grow. Canada’s real gross domestic product rose by 2.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2003. Both the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) project that Canada, along with the U.S., will lead the Group of Seven (G-7) in growth for both this year and the next. Our economy has continued to create jobs, nearly 600,000 since the beginning of 2002, a development that further narrows the unemployment gap between us and the United States.

And our government continues to stay in surplus while so many others slip further into debt. In fact, the OECD expects us to be the only G-7 nation to record a budgetary surplus. It also expects that next year Canada’s debt burden will be the second lowest among the G-7 and, for the first time in 15 years, the same as in the U.S.

Since first balancing the budget six years ago, this government has reduced the federal debt by more than $47 billion. Once, our government was weighed down by this debt load. As much as 36 cents of every tax dollar was devoured by interest payments on the debt. Having brought fiscal order to the Government’s books, we were free to deliver much-needed relief to taxpayers. In 2000 we introduced the largest personal and corporate income tax cuts in Canadian history, worth more than $100 billion over five years, tax cuts which, once fully in place, will reduce average federal income taxes for a family with children by 27 per cent. Fiscally, economically, Canada has turned an important corner in its economic journey, a corner we turned together and, working hard, a journey we will enjoy together.

But ladies and gentlemen, Canada’s success is broader than that, more profound than simple numbers can tell us. That’s because its success is social as well as economic. Its success has a human face. Tonight, for me, that success is in the faces of the people in this room. We are, all of us, immigrants to this country. We bring our gifts, our talents and our purpose and do the best we can for ourselves and our families. And along the way, we are also doing the best we can for our country. Canada, throughout its history, has welcomed so many millions of people from every corner of the earth and given them a new home. And, over and over again, for this generosity, Canada has been repaid tenfold.

Earlier, when I described my trip to India, I called it my first. I have not been back since, but I assure you I will go back, not only because of the land’s grandeur and history-though both are strong motivators. I will, rather, return because of the people: their hospitality, their energy and their excitement for the future-many of the same qualities I feel in this room today.

Thank you very much.