Canada's Place in World Affairs

PRESIDENT: Our Guests, Members of the Empire Club of Canada: All those who take an interest in Canadian affairs and Canadian public events seem to have heard with respect, of our guest speaker today by his first name. Of necessity, at this moment I must be formal and being formal I say, our guest-speaker, Mr. McGeer, was born in Winnipeg, received his early education in Vancouver, and then passed through Ontario to study law in Nova Scotia. From Nova Scotia he again passed through Ontario to British Columbia where he practised law, became Mayor of Vancouver, a Member of the British Columbia Legislature, and now a Member of the House of Commons, but Ontario has him today. The Member for Vancouver has had a remarkable career. His personal qualities and his dynamic energy are well known to you all. Through his independence of mind and after much thoughtful study he has arrived at his present convictions. It is a hopeful sign that men with their future before them like Mr. McGeer are giving unstintingly of their time for the solution of our problems and Canadian problems are many, and before we Canadians have solved them we find ourselves faced with world problems.

The subject of the address today, "Canada's Place in World Affairs" is in most capable hands. I have much pleasure in introducing to you Mr. Gerald G. McGeer, K.C., M.P. Mr. McGeer. (Applause.)

MR. G. G. McGEER, K.C., M.P.: Mr. President and Members of The Empire Club of Canada: When I received the kindly invitation of your Executive, extending to me the privilege of addressing this very august and representative group of Canadians, I gladly accepted the opportunity and the honour, because I believe that we, in the West, and you, in the East, can do well to get together as much as possible. (Applause.) For, whatever our place in the world may be, it cannot .be of any real consequence, either to Canada or to the Empire or to the world, unless we, as Canadians, can show something of the unity of spirit that is essential to Canadian peace and to Canadian progress and prosperity. You know, there are times in the lives of individuals and there are times in the history of the world, and in the course of nations, when the opportunity to disagree, when the spirit of dissension, when the spirit of futility of effort seems to overshadow that spirit of courageous and' hopeful optimism that is born of people who are building a nation together in a spirit of cooperative good.

As one who is privileged to see much of Canadian life from the shores on the Atlantic .to the coast line on the Pacific, and who has been privileged to sit in the inner Council, not only of Provincial Legislative Assemblies, but in this, I think, most difficult of all governmental positions, that of the Mayoralty of a substantial Canadian city, and who has also had the privilege of seeing our Canadian Parliament in action from the inside, both from the House of Commons and the Caucus Chamber, one does get probably a little different point of view than those who are always able to govern the country, whether it be in the city or the province or the Dominion, without ever assuming the responsibility of facing the electors to see whether or not they want him to sit in any one of those places. You know, I always think it is much easier to run the affairs of the country from outside the legislative halls than it is when you are face to face with that exceptional conflict of demands which causes you to look expectantly at the voter in the hope that you will satisfy him in all the expenditures, at the same time looking to the future effect, and feeling, too, that you are looking at one whose only regard for you is that someone will assassinate you before he has to.

You know, I often think as we look out at the future today, that we are always inclined to think our own troubles are just a little bit more trying than the other fellow's, and we carry that through, en masse, and we easily come to the conclusion that we who live today are the most pestered and the most afflicted of all the peoples that have ever lived upon this earth. Personally, I don't think that is true. I think we are the most pampered and favoured of all the people that have ever lived on this earth.

It is a terrible situation to be living on the Pacific Coast. When you pick up the newspaper's and see what our friends, the Japanese are doing to their good friendly neighbours in China and, of course, living out there, when some people in Canada feel that the Rocky Mountains constitute an adequate defense system on the west for the Dominion of Canada, some of us feel, well, just a little bit lonely and isolated at times. You know, I have said to some of my friends out there, "Well, I wonder' if we are as badly off, for instance, as the 5,000,000 people who were living in England at the time Spain launched the Great Armada that was going to sweep up the Atlantic and wipe the British off those very isolated Islands in the North Sea." I think, if we have anything to fear at all upon the Pacific Coast, head we lived in those days with what was before those people, we would never have survived at all, we would have all died of fear and heart failure.

When we look at our problems today and think they are difficult, how would we like to set out like Jacques Cartier did, on that lovely morn in May, to sweep across the Atlantic Ocean in the cockle-shell type of ship that he sailed down the St. Lawrence River in? Or, how would you have liked to face the problems of the little group that came with Champlain to establish the colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, with practically nothing in the way of equipment, outside of a few tools, with little or nothing in the way of supplies but the facilities of taking a livelihood out of that cold and lonely shore?

I was down in Quebec the other day and it was one of those days that they can have in Quebec. I walked out around the Citadel and I said, "You know, I am mighty glad I wasn't one of the fellows that started this show about 300 years ago." We haven't anything like the difficulties and we haven't anything like the problems to face today to bring about a condition of Canadian progress and prosperity that those who have builded before us faced and successfully overcame.

I often think probably the best inspiration that we can have, that inspiration that will give us confidence to go on into the future is to be found in the record of achievement of the builders of this Dominion. There is a great deal of thrilling romance in Canadian history. No one can look back to that conflict on the Plains of Abraham, when two heroes of two heroic races fell, and when from the sacrifices of Montcalm and Wolfe was born the idea of two great races joining together to build a Dominion as their national home. One cannot go through the work of Governor Murray, the terms of the capitulation of Quebec and Montreal, of the conditions of North America during the 70's when the Boston Tea Party was the center of the revolutionary flames that spread right into this Dominion, without recognizing the influence that that North American disturbance had upon Canadian affairs, because it was in the year 1774 I think, the year before Arnold and Montgomery captured Saint John, Quebec, and Montreal, and drove Carlton back to the last citadel in Quebec, that the chatter of rights was extended to the French-Canadians in Canada. That period carried through to the time of the Constitution and in the experimentation of developing a nation as a bi-racial, political entity, many experiments that I sometimes feel have been forgotten by those who would change and amend our Constitution today, experiments that have gone a long way to laying sound precedent for our own guidance at the moment. Out of the Durham Report came the first attempt to establish in Canada a Legislative Union, and under the Act of Union, under the great genius for colonial administration of Sir Guy Carlton, that experiment was given a reasonable trial. It had the assistance of such great minds as Baldwin and Lafontaine, but it wasn't a success and out of the failure was born the need for a new deal, which was promised by the Cartier MacDonald Government in 1858, and consummated through the work of the Fathers of Confederation in 1867.

When we look back today and view the work of that group of men who struggled, with an empire in their minds, to unite the British colonies in North America under a Constitution that would make it possible for them to build a nation out of a wilderness, we cannot help but get some inspiration to tackle, courageously and fearlessly and confidently, some of the problems that face us at the moment. You know, in 1867, there were less than 3 million people in Canada. And, just so you may appreciate what that means, there are 2,400,000 children going to our schools in Canada today and whenever we think of our problems and the future of our Dominion we should directly charge ourselves with the responsibility of thinking in terms of the future of those 2,400,000 children that are going to be the Canadians of tomorrow.

Banking wasn't a very good game in those days in Canada. They only had about 100 million dollars to play with. But they didn't hesitate to assume the responsibility of building the inter-colonial railway as the connecting thread, as the life stream that would bind those four eastern provinces together. I don't know of any responsibility that we can collectively face today that involves anything like a proportionate national responsibility as the inter-colonial railway in those days.

But mark the vision and the faith of those men. They did that in 1867 and within four years, in 1871, they decided to carry the idea of the Dominion of the British Empire in North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and they assumed the obligation of constructing a national transcontinental railway and carried through the idea and, incidentally, burdened the Dominion of Canada with the necessity of building a line of defense upon the Pacific Coast in 1938.

Now, of course, we might look back and say "Oh, well, it would have been better if we hadn't had any Empire builders in the Dominion of Canada," but I doubt if there is any Canadian that would incline to any such spirit or sentiment, because today things are different from what they were seventy years ago, and Canada holds a unique place, not on the North American Continent, but in the whole world of human affairs. I am inclined to think the Fathers of Confederation in the spirit they put into our Constitution, builded better than they knew for today our civilization faces the challenge of international piracy associated with soulless Fascism, and Communism, and Paganism in more than one form, and if the freedom of our democracy survives it will be because some great force and some great influential power shall bring together the peoples of France, of the United States and of Great Britain and the British Empire. (Applause.) The civilizations that they have built up and established, uniting and keeping united can maintain a world leadership toward that Dominion over earth which shall bring peace to men of good will, and without that leadership there will be no peace upon this earth of ours.

Well, I think that by uniting as they did under the Canadian Constitution, the French-Canadians and the Anglo-Canadians, in the work of developing a national home, the Fathers of our Confederation assumed the responsibility for the bold spirit of proving that two peoples of different races, of different customs, and different language and different religion, can live together, building a nation in peace and in co-operative good will. (Applause.) That unique partnership that has thrived for more than 70 years and is still thriving and is going to go on thriving, that partnership successful today, is not altogether confined to Canada because our relationship with the people of the United States for more than 125 years has proven another thing, that while two races can join together in the partnership of building a nation, two peoples under different governments can join together in building and developing the Empire of the North America Continent. Our happy relations between Anglo and French-Canadian people in Canada, our 4,000 miles of boundary line between the United States and this Dominion, which can be properly described as 4,000 miles of neighbourly good will, proves to the world that, no matter of what race or language or religion, people of good will can live together and live together in peace and prosperity.

Now, as we look on the world today, is it not a happy thing and should it not be a matter of prideful boast for every Canadian, that our people have their roots back in old France, that they have their roots back in the British Isles, and that in this friendship with the United States we move across a Continent and across the Pacific Ocean to meet again the peoples of Great Britain, not only in Shanghai and Hong Kong, the people of France in Indo-China, the American responsibility in the Phillipines, and that great outpost of democracy, the naval fortress and base in the Pacific Ocean, of Singapore, and on down to the Antipodes to the people of New Zealand and Australia. The Fathers of our Confederation built Canada on the basis that today it may form the keystone of the arc that will carry that great strength for freedom and liberty and democracy and for world peace that is to be found in the alliance of the French and English-speaking races of the world.

Canada has a great place in the world today and the place she holds puts upon her great responsibility and in the face of those responsibilities Canada should face the need for Canadian unity as she never faced it before. (Applause.) There can be no East or West in this Dominion and there can be no conflict of sectional interests. Canada is a united nation of the two-ocean powered variety and I often think when you look at our great transportation systems, the largest in the world, not confined by any means to the Dominion alone, but centered in our Dominion, reaching across the vast expanses and spreading out to the markets of every nation in the world, crossing every sea upon the shores of which men live, we cannot be of this world and not in it and, my friends, we cannot be in the British Empire and not of it. (Applause.)

Now, in the few minutes at my disposal, I would just like to say one or two words on the things that I think have made for our success. When people have great work to do they don't have time to disagree over the little things and you know, most of our disagreements come over very inconsequential details, both of individuals and provinces and peoples. What is there that we have to do upon which we can unite? Is there some practical problem of reconstruction?

Well, is there a man in this room who doesn't believe that Canada would be much better off if we had a real rehousing programme that would clean up the housing conditions in every one of our Canadian cities? Of course you do. I think most of you probably have read that very excellent contribution that the Royal Bank of Canada made to our economic well-being in the Dominion, its November letter, where it pointed out that our tourist trade is now worth some 300 million dollars a year. Is there a man in this room that doesn't think that the Dominion of Canada would be better off if we had a real system of highways built on modern standards? Is there a man here who doesn't believe if that tourist trade, pushing in under present conditions has now reached 300 millions, that it couldn't be doubled under a proper highways system and under a proper tourist trade policy of development? Well, is there anyone here who wouldn't believe we would be better off if instead of having 381,000 unemployed we hart all of those able to work at work building houses and building highways and creating real assets in our Dominion? Of course we do.

Well, let me put it to you. If England, carrying the load she was carrying under the debt of the Great War can move forward to a housing programme, compelled to import her lumber, what in the world can be preventing us from going to work on our own forests, producing the materials with our own labour that are essential to a housing programme that the Dominion of Canada needs just as badly as England needed hers?

Now, I know it is difficult to review in detail many things that one would like to say at a luncheon of this kind, but lest me put it to you in this broad way. If you will compare our situation today with the situation of our people in 1867, you will find these startling comparisons. They had 100 million dollars in the bank. We have 2,800 million dollars in our banks, 1,500 million of which is in our savings bank deposits.

Now, I want to go a little bit further and say that in that accumulation of money savings, the Dominion of Canada is one of the richest nations in the world today, notwithstanding her debt obligations. But that is not all. In addition to those savings, a portion, of course, of which is invested, I know we have an idle Canadian credit, not on any vague theory of managed currency or inflationary enthusiasms, but under the cold legal limitations and restrictions of our Bank of Canada Act-our Bank Act, our Legal Currency and our Money Act is within the four corners of the statutes now controlling and within the definite limits of banking practice--we, in the Dominion of Canada, have reserves to support over g billion dollars of additional bank deposit credit. Now, I don't want to say that there is g billions of credit available, but what I do say, without that outside limit of our legal possibilities, there is ample credit with which to put this Dominion of Canada to work doing the things that can be done as sound and reasonable propositions.

In the matter of energy, just as with credit, we have far more than we can use. In 1867 animal and man power was largely the energy that built the Intercolonial and the Canadian Pacific Railways. Today, we have three times the people, and what about the new energy that science has placed at our disposal? As compared with the people of Canada of 1867 we have steam power, internal combustion engine power and electrical energy available--you see it on every job--which gives us the control of energy that is equivalent of a power of 32o million slaves. What are we doing with our credit? What are we doing with our heritage of resources? What are we doing with the energy that science has placed at our disposal? We are not doing what the Fathers of Confederation or their predecessors did, because they took their opportunities, based upon a blind faith and went forward, building to the very limit of their resources. We are hanging back, holding in on a safety first basis, crying for some one else to do the job that we should be glad to tackle. Canada's place in the world today is one in which she faces the challenge of the trusteeship of that great heritage that was left to us by the men who built this Dominion. We cannot isolate ourselves within the four walls of our own nation. We are citizens of the world and in the progress of this world or in its failure we will thrive or disappear. Canada, greatest of the overseas Dominions of the British Empire, neighbor of the people of the United States, with friends and relatives and peoples on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, has a place that every Canadian should be proud of and that every Canadian should sense, something that marks Canadian citizenship as a thing to be maintained as a standard for the world. (Cheers-prolonged.)

PRESIDENT: Mr. McGeer, we have listened with great interest to your instructive and inspiring address and we have all profited by it. We know of the many calls upon your time and we are grateful to you for giving us this opportunity of hearing from you. May you be spared assassination to address us many times again!

On behalf of The Empire Club of Canada, our guests and the radio audience, I thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.

(Applause.)