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His Northern Vision

A New Vision

by John G. Diefenbaker

at the Civic Auditorium, Winnipeg, 12 February 1958

Ladies and gentlemen, we started in the last few months, since June the 10th, to carry out our promises, and I can tell you this, that as long as I am Prime Minister of this country, the welfare of the average Canadian will not be forgotten. We intend to launch for the future, we have laid the foundations now, the long-range objectives of this party. We ask from you a mandate; a new and a stronger mandate, to pursue the planning and to carry to fruition our new national development programme for Canada. For years we raised that in the House of Commons, and those in authority ridiculed it. Day before yesterday, Mr. Pearson came out in favour of a national development policy. Why didn't they do it when they Were in power?

This national development policy will create a new sense of national purpose and national destiny. One Canada. One Canada, wherein Canadians will have preserved to them the control of their own economic and political destiny. Sir John A. Macdonald gave his life to this party. He opened the West. He saw Canada from East to West. I see a new Canada - a Canada of the North. What are these new principles? What are our objectives? What do we propose? We propose to assist the provinces, with their co-operation, in the financing and construction of job-creating projects necessary for the new development, where such projects are beyond the resources of the provinces. We will assist the provinces with their cooperation in the conservation of the renewable natural resources. We will aid in projects which are self-liquidating. We will aid in projects which, while not self-liquidating will lead to the development of the national resources for the opening of Canada's northland. We will open that northland for development by improving transportation and communication and by the development of power, by the building of access roads. We will make an inventory of our hydroelectric potential.

Ladies and gentlemen, we now intend to bring in legislation to encourage progressively increasing processing of our domestic raw materials in Canada, rather than shipping them out in raw material form. We will ensure that Canada's national resources are used to benefit Canadians and that Canadians have an opportunity to participate in Canada's development. We have not discouraged foreign investment, but we will encourage the partnership of the foreign investors with the Canadian people....

Canadians, realize your opportunities! This is only the beginning. The future programme for the next five to seven years under a Progressive Conservative Government is one that is calculated to give young Canadians, motivated by a desire to serve, a lift in the heart, faith in Canada's future, faith in her destiny. We will extend aid to economically sound railway projects, such as the Pine Point Railroad to Great Slave Lake. That was promised day before yesterday in the Liberal platform. Why didn't they do it then?

Yes, we will press for hydroelectric development of the Columbia River, which now awaits completion of an agreement with the United States. I mentioned the South Saskatchewan. These are the plans.

This is the message I give to you my fellow Canadians, not one of defeatism. Jobs! Jobs for hundreds of thousands of Canadian people. A new vision! A new hope! A new I soul for Canada.

As far as the Arctic is concerned, how many of you here knew the pioneers in Western Canada. I saw the early days here. Here in Winnipeg in 1909, when the vast movement was taking place into the Western plains, they had imagination. There is a new imagination now. The Arctic. We intend to carry out the legislative programme of Arctic research, to develop Arctic routes, to develop those vast hidden resources the last few years have revealed. Plans to improve the St. Lawrence and the Hudson Bay route. Plans to increase self-government in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. We can see one or two provinces there.

Taxation adjustments to place Canadians on a more equal footing with foreign investors. Encourage foreign investors to make equity stock available to Canadians for purchase, to appoint Canadians to executive positions, to deny the present plan of certain American companies that do not give to Canadian plants their fair share of the export business. Those are some of the things we want to do.

It is for those things that I ask a mandate, not giving you tonight the whole picture at all, by any means but giving you something of the vision as I see it. The reason that I appeal to the Canadian people, a mandate for a clear majority. You set a pace for Manitoba last time. Give us a few more, this.

We need a clear majority to carry out this long-range plan, this great design, this blueprint for the Canada which her resources make possible.

I want to see Canadians given a transcending sense of national purpose, such as Macdonald gave in his day. To safeguard our independence, restore our unity, a policy that will scrupulously respect the rights of the provinces, and at the same time build for the achievement of that one Canada, is the major reason why 35 of our 119 members in the House of Commons are sufficiently young to belong to the Young Progressive Conservatives. They caught that vision. I am not here to condemn others. I am here for the purpose, as a Canadian, to give you a picture of the kind of Canada the long-range plans that we have in mind will bring about....

This party has become the party of national destiny. I hope it will be the party of vision and courage. The party of one Canada, with equal opportunities to all. The only party that can give to youth an Elizabethan sense of grand design - that's my challenge. The faith to venture with enthusiasm to the frontiers of a nation; that faith, that assurance that will be provided with a government strong enough to implement plans for development. To the young men and women of this nation I say, Canada is within your hands. Adventure. Adventure to the nation's utmost bounds, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. The policies that will be placed before the people of Canada in this campaign will be ones that will ensure that today and this century will belong to Canada. The destination is one Canada. To that end I dedicate this party.