My Vision for the Conservative Party

The Empire Club Presents

The Honourable Michael Chong, MP for Wellington– Halton Hills; Leadership Candidate, Conservative Party of Canada, with: My Vision for the Conservative Party

April 27, 2017

Welcome Address, by Colin Lynch, Vice President, Strategy Growth – Executive Office at Greystone Managed Investments and First Vice President of the Empire Club

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. From the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto, welcome, to the 113th season of the Empire Club of Canada. For those of you just joining us through either our webcast or podcast, welcome, to the meeting.

Before our distinguished speaker is introduced today, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our Head Table Guests. I would ask each guest to rise for a brief moment, and be seated as your name is called. At this point, I would typically ask the audience to refrain from applauding until all Head Table Guests have been introduced, but I know from experience that nobody respects that request, so feel free to applaud as I introduce each guest.

Head Table

Distinguished Guest Speaker:

The Honourable Michael Chong, MP for Wellington–Halton Hills; Leadership Candidate, Conservative Party of Canada

Guests:

Mr. David Bissett, Founder, Bissett & Associates Investment Management Ltd.; Member of the Order of Canada

The Honourable Pauline Browes Member of the North American Trilateral Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Ms. Carrie Chong, Program Director, CPC Healthcare Communications Toronto (and Spouse of Michael Chong)

The Honourable Peter Kent, MP, Thornhill; Official Opposition Foreign Affairs Critic; Former Minister of the Environment

Dr. Paul Little Senior Pastor, Living Hope Alliance Church (Brampton and Georgetown)

Mr. Jim Medeiros, CFO, Bluesky Hotels & Resorts Inc.; Director, Empire Club of Canada

Ms. MJ Perry; PhD Student in Theology (University of Toronto); Director, Empire Club of Canada

Mr. Dean Wood, CEO, BorderWorx Logistics Inc.

My name is Colin Lynch. I am the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Growth at Greystone Managed Investments and the First Vice President of the Empire Club of Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, your Head Table Guests.

We live in an interesting age, one that is technologically advanced, innovative and digitally connected. Our age is also a hopeful one and a skeptical one—“hopeful” based on the advances that we have seen across many areas of endeavours, and “skeptical” based on what many see as a lack of authenticity.

Politics, as a field, has borne the brunt of this increased skepticism. We see this not only in the remarks of our less politically inclined friends and colleagues, but in the broad decline in participation rates in elections. My understanding of politics is that it is a field of significant intensity and pressure, intensity driven by several needs: To serve constituents in your riding, to serve the needs of your party in Ottawa or in other ridings and to represent your constituents in the creation and modification of laws. For those who hold cabinet posts, this has added the obligation to provide leadership to an organization the size of a large corporation. Our distinguished speaker has not simply performed those roles, but done so with the desire to improve our country in the most fundamental way, by strengthening our democracy.

Michael Chong is a household name, not because he has served as a cabinet member or because he has a distinguished track record of service to our country. He is a household name because he has so boldly put the interests of our nation, the integrity and strength of our democracy, at the centre of what he stands for.

Michael’s story is inspirational, not in the idyllic sense of portraying an impossible Canadian dream, but in representing the values that define our national story. Michael is the eldest son of a Dutch immigrant mother and Chinese immigrant father. His parents’ families were defended by and liberated by Canadian troops in the Second World War. Michael’s father worked as a lumberjack, becoming one of the first Chinese Canadians to be accepted into medical school. Michael appreciates and understands that diversity is what unites and enriches Canada, as a country.

Michael was elected to the Parliament of Canada in 2004, representing Wellington–Halton Hills. He was appointed as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, President of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada, Minister of Sport in 2006. Michael resigned from cabinet in November 2006, stating that, “I believe in one nation, undivided, called Canada.” As a backbench MP, Michael proposed the Reform Act to increase the power of party caucuses, an act that was given royal assent in 2015. Under the Act, each caucus votes at the beginning of each parliament on whether or not it will adopt the Act’s procedures that give caucus the power to review and remove the party leader, elect and review the caucus chair, expel and readmit caucus members.

On May 16th, 2016, Michael launched his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Today, it is a true delight to welcome him to the podium of the Empire Club of Canada.

The Honourable Michael Chong

Good afternoon, everyone. Bonne après-midi. C’est un grand plaisir d’ȇtre ici aujourd’hui avec tout les monde. Thank you very much for that kind introduction and for inviting me here to speak to the Empire Club today. I want to thank our hosts and sponsors of today’s luncheon, E-L Financial Corporation Limited, David Bissett, thank you very much; and BorderWorx Logistics and Ted Michalos of Hoyes, Michaelos & Associates. Thank you for sponsoring this event, and thank you all for coming out to talk about the future of one of Canada’s two major national parties, the Conservative Party of Canada.

Yesterday was big news. Kevin O’Leary quit the race. There are two conclusions we can draw from this. Firstly, this race is wide open. Secondly, O’Leary quit the race because, as he said yesterday, quite simply, he cannot speak French. He quit the race because he concluded his lack of French meant that he could not win in 2019. What that means for the remaining 13 candidates in this Conservative leadership race is this: Those candidates who cannot speak French cannot lead the Conservative Party of Canada. That means that there are only three credible candidates remaining in this race. Those are Maxime Bernier, Andrew Scheer and me, Michael Chong.

[Remarks in French]

I think it is clear that this race is now down to these final three candidates, and Conservative Party members have to take a serious look at which candidates can speak French and which candidates cannot and which candidates can win in 2019.

Let me take a few minutes to outline my vision for the Conservative Party of Canada and let me tell you why I believe I am best poised to lead this party if Conservatives want to win the next federal election. As Conservatives, we come from a proud tradition. We are the original governing party of Canada. It was John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier, who articulated a Canadian conservatism unique in North America that balanced the interests of the individual with the collective will of the public good. It was John A. MacDonald’s administration that led the nation-building projects, the collective projects of building a national railway that led to Confederation 150 years ago this very year. Without that collective nation-building effort, Canada would not exist; British Columbia would not have entered the union; the railway would not have been completed in 1884; and we would not have survived on the north half of this continent.

That vision of our potential as a country and a uniquely Canadian conservative balance of individual rights and service to the nation continued under subsequent Conservative leaders. Conservative leaders like Robert Borden, who led Canada through the dark days of the Great War, where 60,000 Canadian soldiers, who leveraged that terrible tragedy to lay the groundwork for a full Canadian independence a decade later, were killed; RB Bennett, who created great national institutions like CBC/Radio-Canada and the National Research Council; John Diefenbaker, who laid the ground for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by introducing, in 1960, the Bill of Rights; Brian Mulroney, who, in the 1980s, led the charge on the international stage against South African apartheid in the Commonwealth and who led the charge to take Canada out of the National Policy and into the North American Free Trade Agreement; and, more recently, Conservative leaders like Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay, who set aside their own personal ambitions to merge the parties in the Conservative movement and who pragmatically and practically steered Canada through the global financial crisis of 2008, the worst financial crisis that we had experienced since the Great Depression.

I would argue—and I would win the argument— that Canadian conservatives and the Conservative Party have produced the most profound and positive impacts on the country today, have produced the relative prosperity that we have enjoyed today and the unrivalled quality of life that we call the Canadian experience.

We may not be the natural governing party of Canada, but we are indisputably the workhorse of Confederation. In that historical context of the proud tradition of the Conservative Party, I view the current leadership race with some dismay. I see leadership campaigns that have played to anti-immigrant sentiment and that have proposed extreme policies. I see campaigns that have targeted and scapegoated minorities in this country. You cannot play to anti-immigrant sentiment and then act surprised when not just one, but two white supremacist groups endorse your campaigns, like they have done with Kellie Leitch. I have seen campaigns that have ignored the plight of our Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples and have proposed to unilaterally scrap treaty rights that are enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. I see campaigns, all the other campaigns, who have not presented a credible policy to reduce emissions and to address the real threat of climate change, despite overwhelming evidence that Canadians want it addressed. I see campaigns that have no real plans to get our economy moving and to address the real headwinds that we are facing as a Canadian economy. I see campaigns who believe it is not important for the leader of the Conservative Party, the person who wants to be the next prime minister of this country, to speak French. A serious candidate and leadership campaign would have prepared to speak French, as Stephen Harper did and as I did. These extreme policies of the other campaigns will ensure our party’s defeat in the next 2019 election.

Let me tell you how we can win in 2019 and why I am the leader that can win in 2019. Since our country was founded 150 years ago when Macdonald and Cartier brought together two very different peoples, four different colonies, speaking two different languages with a myriad of competing sectarian and ethnic groups, our party has been marked by inclusivity and generosity. That is the kind of conservatism I want to build on; that is the kind of optimistic conservatism that I want to create; and that is the kind of conservatism of opportunity I want to give to every Canadian. I want to build a party that includes Canadians of all races, all religions, all creeds, a party that includes Canadians from all regions of this country, centred on our shared conservative values, values such as a belief in individual liberty, in the acknowledgement that we, as conservatives, need to be wary of an overly powerful state that intrudes into the lives of its private citizens; a belief in the power of free markets but also a belief that sometimes markets fail, and when they do, governments have a responsibility to step in to help the most vulnerable in our society; a belief in limited government and lower taxes; a belief in equality of opportunity, not equality of condition; a belief in giving agency to its citizens; and, importantly, a belief that Canada is not simply a collection of different groups with no common identity, but, rather, we are a nation of 36 million citizens on the north half of this continent who share a common identity and common purpose, who share common democratic institutions, a history together, and a common future together.

I want to lead a party that presents policies based on these conservative values. That is why I have proposed one of the largest income tax cuts in Canadian history, an $18 billion personal and corporate income tax cut that we would introduce in our first budget of the spring of 2020, mere months after the next election. We need to reduce personal and corporate income taxes. They are stifling growth, and they are suppressing business investment. The Trump administration’s recent announcement of much lower U.S. personal and corporate income taxes makes my plan even more essential. If we do not reduce our taxes, both personal and corporate here in Canada, we are going to see a flight of business investment to south of the border, and the brain drain will surely follow. It is why I have also proposed credible policies to reduce emissions, because at the root of what it means to be a conservative is to conserve our environment for future generations.

We, as conservatives, have a proud tradition on environmental issues, a tradition that we lost in the last ten years, a tradition that we must reclaim. We are the party that created Canada’s National Parks system with the establishment of Banff National Park, by John A. Macdonald. We are the party that established the Acid Rain Treaty to reduce pollution, with the administration of Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, in the 1980s. We were the government of the 1980s that came forward with the Green Plan that signed on to Rio, the precursor to the Kyoto Protocol. We are the party of the environment, and, we, as conservatives, need to reclaim this proud tradition. That is why I have proposed a revenue neutral carbon tax: Because it is the cheapest, and it is the most conservative way to reduce emissions. It is based on free markets and much smaller government, and it is the source of revenues to pay for this $18 billion tax cut.

My plan starts with these tax cuts so that Canadian families will have more money in their pocket at the end of the year. My plan will also do good for our environment. These conservative values are also the reason why I have proposed sweeping democratic reforms to our political system because we, as conservatives, believe in the fallibility of humanity. We believe that no one person should have all the power. If I become party leader, as prime minister, my government will introduce the most sweeping reforms to our political system in the history of this country. We will reform the Senate, the House of Commons and political parties, to sweep out back room political elites and return power back to ordinary people to make our democracy much more participatory and, most importantly, to restore the role of the elected Member of Parliament as a representative of their constituents.

This issue of democratic reform is critically important, not just for conservatives, but for Canadians. We need to renew our democracy, to restore people’s faith in our common democratic institutions, especially, in the face of a surge in populism that we have seen here and elsewhere around the world. A lot of opposition leaders have promised democratic reform only to renege on it when they get in government. My track record proves that I will implement these reforms, if we form government, and, especially important for conservatives, in light of the cynical and broken promise of the current Trudeau government on electoral reform.

Let us take a step back and take a look at the other candidates in this race. What do they offer? Not much. As I mentioned earlier, Kellie Leitch’s plan to anti-immigrant sentiment, as are other candidates in this race, hoping that a divide-and-conquer strategy of wedge politics will lead to victory. It will not, and it will lead us to a well-deserved defeat. Forty percent of this country, today, is foreign born or born to a foreign-born parent. This is a strategy that will lead to a loss in 2019.

None of the other candidates have proposed a credible policy on emissions, which is not just an environmental question for us; it is now increasingly an economic question. Oh, sure, some of them have talked about providing incentives and working with green technologies to reduce our emissions, but none have come up with a concrete plan that is based on conservative principles of free markets and smaller government. One candidate in this race, Maxime Bernier, is proposing deep income tax cuts, but he is proposing to pay for them by eliminating more than one third of all federal program spending. Think about that: Eliminating more than one third of all federal program spending. Let us take this in the historical context. The deepest cuts to the federal public administration and federal programs took place under Finance Minister Paul Martin, in 1995. In that subsequent three-year period, the Chrétien government cut federal programs by 10%. They were savage cuts; they were deep cuts, and they affected provincial, education and healthcare systems for the following decade.

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, we cut 6.5% of federal programs over a five-year period to balance the budget in 2015. What Maxime Bernier is proposing are program cuts that are five times the size of what the Harper government proposed. We have seen this move before in the last Ontario election. The Ontario PCs proposed to eliminate 100,000 public service jobs in this province, and we all know what happened. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and they handed a tired old government another win.

What Canadians will respond to is well thought out policies that will control expenditures and reduce the deficit, stimulate our economy, protect our environment, while controlling government expenditures. Another extreme policy: Maxime Bernier has proposed to eliminate, for the first time in 50 years, the federal government’s role in the delivery of public healthcare. He has, in effect, proposed to eliminate the Canada Health Act, Canada’s most cherished social programs on which rests the five principles of healthcare delivery in this country. That is a recipe that will lead to defeat in 2019. I want to lead a party that actually comes forward with real policies to address the real concerns of ordinary Canadians, not a party that gets distracted by ideological issues of little consequence.

A lot of time and energy on this campaign has been a debate about supply management in our dairy sector. When I walk the streets of Fergus with my wife and kids and we go grocery shopping at the local Zehrs, people are not talking to me about the price of milk. It is not, perhaps, a perfect system—our system of supply management for dairy, eggs, poultry and turkeys—but there is no absolutely pressing issue here from Canadians’ perspective. The cost of food, as a percentage of household gross income, has plummeted in the last 40 years. Never before in the history of humanity or in the history of Canada has food been cheaper than it is today. Ten percent of a typical household’s gross income goes to food. Before the Second World War, it was more than 50%.

You know what the pressing issue is that ordinary people are concerned about, that is dashing the dreams of millions of Canadians, especially, those in the middle class, an issue that every other candidate in this race has ignored? That is the issue of the cost of housing. The cost of housing is out of reach for most and, increasingly, for many families in this country. I am the only candidate that has proposed a credible plan to put housing back on a sustainable track, and it is a conservative plan. I will privatize the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s mortgage insurance business. This business that we have been engaged in is recreating the housing bubble of the 2008 financial crisis. CMHC is, in effect, the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac of Canada, whose organizations had implicit guarantees from the U.S. government. The rapid expansion of mortgage credit has led to unsustainable rises in household debt and the corresponding skyrocketing cost of housing. It is absurd that the federal government is socializing the risk on the back of taxpayers, while privatizing the profits that the banks generate.

Maxime Bernier and Steven Blaney continue to one-up each other on the issue of supply management, but as Canadians enter the ballot box in the fall of 2019, what are they going to be asking themselves, about the price of milk or the price of housing?

Finally, we have candidates, as I mentioned earlier, who are in this race, who cannot speak French. The debate is over, as Kevin O’Leary pointed out yesterday.

To do so otherwise, it is to disrespect the 25% of this country, whose first maternal language is French, and it gives the Liberal Party a head start in a third of the ridings in this country where Francophones have a majority or a deciding vote in the outcome.

I have worked hard to learn my French over the last years. I say to people I started in Ottawa as a unilingual, English-speaking MP 13 years ago, just like Jean Chrétien started in the 1960s.

I just want to say a few words in closing. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. As was mentioned earlier, I am the son of immigrant parents, and I am very proud of it. My father, who came here from Hong Kong in 1952, was a Chinese immigrant to this country. My mother was a Dutch immigrant, who came here from the Netherlands in the 1960s. They came here in search of a better life for themselves and their children. They met here in Kingston, Ontario; they got married; and they had four children. I have got a brother, of the second generation of Chongs, who is a surgeon in British Columbia. My other brother works here in the city at Sick Kids as a medical researcher in cystic fibrosis research, and my sister studied French at university. I want to acknowledge my wife, Carrie, who is here today, for all of her hard work and support over these last 11 months and beyond. My wife, Carrie, is the other side of the Canadian story. Her family arrived on a boat to the Port of Montréal in 1830 from Scotland. They have been here for generations. My kids—they have a Chinese last name, Chong—can claim origins that are a quarter Dutch, a quarter Chinese and the rest is a mélange. Part of that mélange is from Newfoundland, and they are in French immersion in public school in Fergus. That is a Canadian story. It is a story of millions of Canadians across this country.

My youngest brother, who is the surgeon in British Columbia, he married a Franco-Ontarian. He has two children with Caroline. Peter and Caroline, my niece and nephew, their two children, are Francophones. I say to people, my father came here as a Chinese-speaking immigrant, and the second generation of Chongs are Anglophone.

This is my story, and it is a story of millions of Canadians who have come here in recent years and those in the more distant past. It is to those people, to Canadians, that we have to tell these stories in order to be able to win in 2019. In other words, we have to broaden the Conservative Party and speak to all Canadians.

Finally, there are two polls that I want to highlight in this race that I think are the ultimate ballot question for Conservative Party members. There was a CTV Nanos poll that was conducted last December that asked Canadian voters who was the most appealing conservative leader. Of all the candidates remaining in this race, we came out on top as the most appealing leader to the average voter. Abacus Research today issued an analysis of their current race and concluded in its analysis that I am the most appealing leader to the average voter out there. I think that is an important question and important fact. Those are important facts that Conservative Party members need to think about as they start marking their ballot next week and in the following four weeks. I want my fellow Conservative Party members to dwell on that as we head to May 27. What kind of leader do you want at the end of this leadership process? Where do you want that leader to take the Conservative Party? Who is the leader that can take on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in 2019? I have the story and the plan that speaks to Canadians. I have the story and the plan that appeals to Canadians. I have the story and the plan that can win in 2019. Merci beaucoup.

Questions & Answers

Q: Michael, excellent presentation. I am very interested in knowing your thoughts on Andrew Scheer because you specifically focused on Maxime Bernier. Obviously, it is going to come down to two candidates. What is your feeling on Andrew Scheer?

MC: I think that we have had a number of leaders of our party from Western Canada, and I think that being a national party it should not make a difference where the leadership of the party comes from, but I do believe that we need to win here in Ontario, and we need to win in Atlantic Canada where we have not a single seat. We need a leader that can appeal to suburban voters here, in the GTA, can appeal to voters living in suburban regions of Montréal and voters living in cities like Guelph, Cambridge, Waterloo, Toronto and other cities across this country.

I understand the challenges facing families here, in the GTA and in the city of Toronto, quite simply because I live here. I have been elected as a Conservative MP in the GTA for the last five terms, so I understand the challenges facing Canadians in these large city regions, which are precisely the areas of the country that I need to win in order to form a government. Thanks for the question.

Q: Hi, Michael. I echo my friends. We mark that as a great speech. I wish all the conservatives can hear from you on this issue. Just wondering, you touched on a housing issue, specifically, about privatizing the Mortgage Corporation’s mortgage insurance business as one solution. I guess most Canadians would like you to elaborate a little bit more. I hope you have more than just that privatization, and maybe you can share your views on this.

MC: Thanks, Ricky, for the question. Look, this is the biggest issue facing the Canadian economy: The unsustainable rise in housing prices and our record high levels of household debt. What governments have been doing over the last ten years is not working. We have been tinkering around the edges. Since 2009, we have introduced a myriad of changes to the mortgage market in order to try to cool it. If anything, the opposite has happened. Housing prices have continued to accelerate at even faster rates. It is clear that we need fundamental reforms to our system, reforms that organizations like the IMF have been calling on us to make for years. It is why Minister Jim Flaherty, some five years ago, talked about privatizing CMHC’s mortgage insurance business and said that we should get it done in the following five to ten years. We are not at year five when he made that commitment, and I think the government needs to take it on.

Quite simply, we have a demand-driven problem in our housing market. When you take a look at the broad statistics, homeownership levels in Canada are at record high levels, and they are at record high levels in the OECD. Clearly, this is a demand issue. While foreign, non-resident home buyers may be a factor, I believe—and the research points to this—that the overwhelming driver of demand in our housing market is the government’s mortgage insurance program, which guarantees the bank’s default risk. More than one third of all Canadian mortgages are fully backed by the full faith and credit of the Government of Canada through its default risk, through its mortgage insurance program. Essentially, the banks love the program. They are churning out mortgages like there is no tomorrow because, for $500 billion of those mortgages, they have zero risk. It is all borne on the Canadian taxpayer. That is what has led to these unsustainable rates of mortgage credit growth, and it is what has led to skyrocketing housing prices.

We have seen this move before in the United States. The exact same thing happened prior to the 2008 U.S. housing crash. Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, while not U.S. federal government corporations, had implicit guarantees from the U.S. federal government that if any default happened, the full faith and credit of the United States government would step in. That is exactly what happened. We are repeating the mistakes that they made, and it is time for fundamental reforms to get the government out of this business of privatizing profits and socializing the risk. And it is time for the return of the federal government to its proper, traditional role as an overseer of systemic bank risk by strengthening the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and ensuring that bank mortgage risk is properly priced, that taxpayers do not bear the risk, and that the banks do not take on undue risk. What that will do is lead to more sustainable rates of mortgage credit growth. That, in turn, is the only long term solution to putting housing back on affordable tracks so that middle-class families can, once again, afford to buy a house in Canada’s cities.

Q: There are many people, I am sure, in this room, who are big supporters of yours, and I think I am the number one. Hopefully, I am. What can we do, what can one mere person do to help you in the last 30 days? What can we do to help you when we are voting or on the ballot day? What can we do?

MC: The number one thing you can do is tell your fellow Conservative Party members to vote for me on the first ballot. The reality is that, typically, in a leadership race like this, only a third of party members actually vote. Perhaps, in this race we will see voter turnout closer to 50%, but the reality is a lot of money, so to speak, a lot of votes, so to speak, are left on the table.

Encouraging your fellow Conservative Party members to vote in this race and vote for the only candidate who has presented a credible plan to take the economy, the environment and our democracy forward would be really helpful for our campaign.

We are trying to build a much bigger party that includes many more Canadians and many more regions of this country. I think that is a message that resonates with a lot of people. As I pointed out in my opening remarks, I am the kid of immigrant parents. We live in a country that is increasingly diverse, and we need a Conservative Party leader that can reach out and re-earn the support of immigrant communities. I understand the immigrant experience. It is an incredibly important thing for a leader to understand in order to win over ethnocultural communities in this country.

My first language was not actually English; it was Dutch. My mother spoke to me in Dutch, as a kid, and dad spoke Cantonese and Mandarin, but he was always at work, so I picked up a lot of Dutch when I was a kid. When I was five years old, and I went to kindergarten in Ponsonby Public School, just down the road from where I live today, they did a pre-kindergarten evaluation of my aptitude, and they had no idea that I was half Dutch. They just knew I had a Chinese last name, and they could not figure out why I had this massive speech impediment, that I could not pronounce any of the words, until they called my father and said, “He does not need remedial speech therapy. His mother is Dutch.” So that was my diagnosis for kindergarten. I tell you that story because I get the immigrant experience. If we are going to win, as conservatives, we need to be able to go into these communities and say that we understand your challenges, your fears, your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations, and we are the vehicle, the party that can carry those forward. Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup.

Note of Appreciation, by Pauline Browes, Member of the North American Trilateral Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Michael, Head Table Guests and friends. I want to thank the Empire Club for hosting this wonderful opportunity for us to hear firsthand the thoughtful and thorough outline of the issues that Michael has illuminated for us today and his vision for Canada in the first quarter of this century now and for the future.

When Michael says his first language was Dutch and he had a Chinese father, he did not tell you that he looks fabulous in a Scottish kilt. On top of that, he speaks French. How Canadian is that—and wonderful! Yes, Michael has this background. He has the understanding and the knowledge of this great city, of this great province and this great country. We are proud of his political success for more than a decade in the Parliament of Canada, his entrepreneurial experiences that he has had, and we are truly grateful for your leadership in this campaign.

Michael’s policies and the issues that he has defined for us today concerning getting the economy moving, jobs for the kids, environment—environment is big—housing, all of these issues are so important for us as we take those issues to the people of Canada. Michael and my paths crossed a few years ago concerning the issues establishing the Rouge National Urban Park right here in the GTA.

Michael’s enthusiasm, passion for this initiative was most encouraging. He was the advocate in Ottawa, along with Peter Kent, who was the Minister of the Environment at the time, to have Canada’s first national urban park right here in Toronto, Markham and Pickering. This is groundbreaking. This is wonderful. He gets things done.

Yes, protecting the environment and promoting the economy are priorities that we have heard today. He has approached this campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in a principled, resourceful and innovative manner with practical and creative solutions to the issues today.

We thank you, Michael, for demonstrating your leadership and charting a course of action for our country, concerning a myriad of issues, important issues. You have articulated for us your assessments, your ideas, your vision for Canada and for charting the advancement for the future of Canada, as we are challenged by the internal issues that we have in this country as well as our international obligations. Your thoughtful and integrated approach to the issues are those that we commend, we endorse, and we support. Canada will certainly be in very good hands with Michael as the leadership. I want to vote today! Maybe you want to vote today. We thank you so much for your remarks, and we wish you all the best in the weeks ahead.

Concluding Remarks, by Colin Lynch

Thank you for those remarks. I would like to also extend a sincere thank you to our generous sponsors, Ontario BorderWorx Logistics, E-L Financial and T. A. Michalos. Thank you, also, to our VIP reception sponsor, David Bissett, for making this event possible. Without sponsors like these great companies, Empire Club lunches would not be possible. Thank you, once again, for your support.

I would also like to thank the National Post, as our print media sponsor and mediaevents.ca, Canada’s online event space, for live casting today’s event to thousands of viewers around the world. Although our club has been around since 1903, we have, fortunately, moved into the 21st century, and are active on social media. Please, follow us on Twitter at @Empire_Club and visit us online at empire- club.org. You can also follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and anything else you can think of.

Finally, please, join us again soon at one of our fantastic upcoming events. We will have a discussion on the future of Canada’s cultural institutions, featuring the CEO of the ROM and the CEO of the AGO on May 5th, at the Arcadian Court. Minister of Health Eric Hoskins will be speaking on May 29th at the Royal York Hotel.

Thank you for your attendance today. The meeting is now adjourned.