Mark Carney: 'The old relationship we had with the United States is over', Response to Trump trade tariffs - 2025

28 March 2025, Ottawa, Canada

Today my cabinet colleagues and I met to discuss Canada's response to the latest developments in the trade crisis. Yesterday, in the latest salvo in his trade war, President Trump again imposed unjustified tariffs on our nation in violation of our existing trade agreements.

This time he targeted the auto industry and the more than 500,000 hardworking, dedicated Canadians that that industry supports across our country.

Now, the president of the United States is trying to fundamentally restructure his economy, it means our economy, and it means the global economy as well. And I understand and respect his goal to support American workers, but I disagree with him that this is how to help them. With time, it will become apparent that these actions will end up hurting American workers and American consumers.

I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us. That will never happen. And our response to these latest tariffs is to fight, is to protect and to build. We will fight the US tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada. We will protect our workers and our industries during this difficult period,. But above all, we will build a new Canadian economy. We will build Canada strong.

Coming to terms with this sobering reality is the first step to taking necessary actions to defend our nation. But it's only the first step.

Last night the president of the United States reached out to schedule a call. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss how we can protect our workers and build our economies. I will make clear to the President that those interests are best served by cooperation and mutual respect, including of our sovereignty.

Let's be clear, we're all on the same page. We won't back down. We will respond forcefully. Nothing is off the table to defend our workers and our country.

Now, to my fellow Canadians, I don't want to set unreasonable expectations. The road ahead will be long. There is no silver bullet. There is no quick fix. And I know and I understand that many are feeling anxious and worried about the future. Fundamental change is always unsettling. But I have every confidence in our country because I understand what President Trump does not. That we love Canada with every fibre of our being because we are stronger when we are together and Canadians are uniting as never before.

Now, we are going to have to live the lessons of recent months. First, that we have to look out for ourselves. And second, that we have to look out for each other. The federal government will do everything in its power to protect Canadian workers and businesses. We will be here for you every step of the way. In the past week, my government committed to use every dollar collected from our retaliatory tariffs to protect our workers. Our biggest challenge as a country is becoming the most urgent. Over the coming weeks, months and years, we must fundamentally reimagine our economy.

We will need to ensure that Canada can succeed in a drastically different world. The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations is over. What exactly the United States does next is unclear. But what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency, we have power. We are masters in our own home nous ? chez nous.

We can control our destiny. We can give ourselves much more than any foreign government, including the United States can ever take away. We can deal with this crisis best by building our strength right here at home. It will take hard work. It will take steady and focused determination from governments, from businesses, from labour, from Canadians. We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States. We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere, and we will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven't seen in generations.

But we can make ourselves more productive and therefore more competitive. We can break down internal trade barriers. We can build a stronger and more resilient economy, and that's what I'm squarely focused on as your prime Minister.

Spiro Agnew: 'I would swap the whole damn zoo', Missouri Republican Party Fundraising Dinner - 1970

10 February 1970 , St Louis, Missouri, USA

Heard this grab on Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary.

The Washington Post, which constantly urges us to lower our voices, said after the President's detailed address to the nation on his decision to clean out the Cambodian sanctuaries, and I quote, the Post said 'there is something so erratic and irrational, not to say incomprehensible about all this that you have to assume there is more to it than he is telling us.' Now, the Post might just well have come out and said that it thought the President had lost his sanity. Words like 'erratic', 'irrational', and 'incomprehensible' are not ordinarily used to describe the carefully studied military decision of the nation's commander in chief .

Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard a lot of wild, hot rhetoric tonight. None of it, mine. This goes on daily in the editorial pages of some very large, reputable newspapers in this country. Not all of them in the East by a long shot. And it pours out of the television set, and the radio in a daily torrent, assailing our ears so incessantly that we no longer register shock at the irresponsibility and the thoughtlessness behind the statements. 'But you are the vice president', they say to me, 'you should choose your language more carefully'. Nonsense. I swore that I would uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Those who would tear our country apart or try to bring down its government are enemies, whether here or abroad, whether destroying libraries and classrooms on a college campus, or firing at American troops from a rice paddy in Southeast Asia.

Indeed, as for these deserters, malcontents, radicals, incendiaries, the civil and the uncivil disobedience among our young, SDS, PLP, Weatherman I and Weathermen II, the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Yippies, hippies, Yahoos, Black Panthers, lions and tigers alike — I would swap the whole damn zoo for a single platoon of the kind of young Americans I saw in Vietnam.

Tommy Douglas: 'All my life, I've wished that it were possible that I could attend my own funeral', Resignation as NDP Leader - 1971

24 April 1971, Ottawa, Canada

All my life, I've wished that it were possible that I could attend my own funeral and listen to the eulogies that would be made on my behalf, but I knew that this would be extremely difficult as I'd have to be dead.

Laurier LaPierre and his committee have made it possible maybe for me to listen to the eulogies without the disadvantage of having passed on to another world, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to have eulogies delivered by such talented and eloquent spokesmen, and I would like to thank Pierre Berton, this noted author and outstanding radio personality, and to say that I know of no one in Canada from whom I would appreciate this tribute more than from this man.

I want to assure you that my wife, Irma, and myself are deeply touched by these tributes that we are profoundly grateful for this occasion. I am glad that you included Irma because, as someone has said, "Behind every successful man, there's a surprised mother-in-law," and I have been fortunate that in all my political career I've had someone who has helped me and encouraged me, and tonight I'm glad that you are paying tribute to her.

I want to say to Grant Notley that I am not saying goodbye either. I propose to stay in the House of Commons until the next election. Our supporters in the Nanaimo-Cowichan Islands have done me the great honour of nominating me to contest the next federal election and, if God gives me strength and the electorate give votes, I'll be here fighting at the same old stand for the things in which you and I believe.

But, tonight, my wife, Irma, and I did not come here so much to receive your thanks, although we are deeply grateful for it. We have come tonight to thank you, to thank the hundreds of thousands of people you represent who have made anything we have done possible.

I think of the men and women who 35 years ago and more dreamed the impossible dream, men and women who lived beyond the lean horizon of their years, who believed devoutly that it was possible to have a more humane and a more just society, and who gave up their time and their money and their energy to begin building it.

Tthe men and women who travelled in all kinds of weather and in all kinds of vehicles, who went from schoolhouse to schoolhouse organising, raising money, who canvassed from door to door, who passed out literature, who manned the polls, who drove cars on election day, you who are here and thousands whom you represent. These are the men and women to whom we should be profoundly grateful.

I feel tonight a great flow of gratitude to them, and I'm filled with wonder that I, raised in a working class home on the wrong side of tracks in the city of Winnipeg should have been given the opportunity by the working people of this country to make a contribution to the public life of Canada, which I hope will long endure.

If I were asked to sum up for the people of Canada and for the New Democratic Party what I have learned from more than a third of a century in public life, I would sum it up by saying to them that it is possible in this country of ours to build a society in which there will be full employment, in which there will be a higher standard of living, in which there will be an improved quality of life while at the same time maintaining a reasonable stability in the cost of living.

We don't have to have three quarters of a million unemployed. We don't have to choose between unemployment and inflation.

My message to you is that we don't have to do this. My message to you is that we have in Canada the resources, the technical know-how and the industrious people who could make this a great land if we were prepared to bring these various factors together in building a planned economy dedicated to meeting human needs and responding to human wants.

Mr. Coldwell and I have seen it happen. In 1937, when the CCF proposed in the House of Commons a $500-million program to put single unemployed to work, the minister of finance said, "Where will we get the money?"

Mr. [inaudible 00:08:21] asked the same question today. My reply at that time was that if we were to go to war, the minister would find the money, and it turned out to be true.

In 1939, when we declared war against Nazi Germany, for the first time, we used the Bank of Canada to make financially possible what was physically possible. We took a million men and women and put them in uniform. We fed and clothed and armed them. The rest of the people of Canada went to work. The government organised over a hundred ground corporations. We manufactured things that had never been manufactured before. We gave our farmers and fishermen guaranteed prices, and they produced more food than we'd ever produced in peacetime. We built the third largest merchant navy in the world and we manned it. In order to prevent profiteering and inflation, we fixed prices, and we did it all without borrowing a single dollar from outside of Canada.

My message to the people of Canada is this, that if we could mobilise the financial and the material and the human resources of this country to fight a successful war against Nazi tyranny, we can if we want to mobilise the same resources to fight a continual war against poverty, unemployment and social injustice.

Fifty years ago, the founder of our movement, J.S. Woodsworth, wrote a pledge. That pledge has been the beacon star of my life, and I pass it on to those of you who must continue the building of this movement, and I hope you'll make it your pledge.

J.S. Woodsworth wrote, "We pledge ourselves to united efforts in establishing on the earth an era of justice, truth and love. May our faces be to the future. May we be the children of that brighter and better day which even now is beginning to dawn. May we not impede, but rather cooperate with those spiritual forces which we believe are impelling the world upward and onward, for our supreme task is to make our dreams come true, to transform our city into the holy city and to make this land in reality God's own country."

Thank you.

Tommy Douglas: 'Don't ever let them tell you we can't afford healthcare', 50th Anniversary NDP Convention - 1983

1 July 1983, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

Douglas is the most famous liberal reformer in Canadian political history. He retired from parliament in 1979. He returned to the 1983 NDP convention to give this inspiring speech .

The second is, again, it's been mentioned, to save Medicare from subtle strangulation. When you go back to your constituency and you run into somebody who says, "It's a good idea for you soft package humanitarians, but we can't afford it," let me give you a simple statistic which you can put down on a piece of paper and carry in your head.

That is that our friends in United States are spending 9% of their gross national product. They got a higher per capita gross national product than we do. They spend 9% of their gross national product on healthcare, and 34 million of their people have no healthcare coverage.

In Canada, we spend 7% of our gross national product, and every man, woman, and child in Canada is covered under Medicare.

I want to warn you as one who started out even before I was in politics, dedicated to the idea of comprehensive health insurance. Fought for it through all my political life.

I want to say to you that Medicare and hospital insurance are already marked for destruction, unless you stop the per capita taxes and the extra billing, which most of the governments of Canada are now permitting.

Someone said, "But what I'm going to do, what I'm going to do." A per capita tax which is levied without any basis of ability to pay. A woman in Ontario with two children, having to pay over $50 a month, $600 a year, can she afford that? That's levied on a per capita basis, not on the basis of ability to pay.

I know you need money to run Medicare. I can tell you something about the cost of that. But if we need money for Medicare or for any other humane service, let it be financed on the basis of ability to pay, and not on so much per head.

We must fight as we have never fought before.

To say per capita tax for healthcare, out the window. To say there must be no extra billing or extra charges.

You say, "Why? What harm does it do?" I'll tell you what harm it does.

It means that increasingly the people who can afford to pay the per capita tax is going up, just gone up in Alberta. People who are going to afford to pay per capita tax, and the people who are going to afford to pay extra billing will pay it.

They will get the best care, they will get the most experienced surgeons and physicians, they will get into the best hospitals.

The people who can't pay, they'll take what's left. If you want a two-tiered health program, then just continue the way we're going.

I remind you that in this movement, we pledged ourselves 50 years ago, that we would provide healthcare for every man, woman, and child, irrespective of their colour, their race, or their financial status.

By God, we're going to do it.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary: 'Break every yoke and let the oppressed go free', antil slavery sermon - 1858

6 April 1858, Chatham, Canada

Cary was born into an affluent free black family in Wilmington, Delaware. Nonetheless after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Shadd joined thousands of other African Americans in emigrating to Canada. She was a vocal abolitionist. 

1st business of life, to love the Lord our God with heart and soul, and our neighbor as our self.—

We must then manifest love to God by obedience to his will—we must be cheerful workers in his cause at all times—on the Sabbath and other days[.]‌ The more readiness we evince the more we manifest our love, and as our field is directly among those of his creatures made in his own image in acting as themself who is no respecter of persons we must have failed in our duty until we become decided to waive all prejudices of Education[,] birth nation or training and make the test of our obedience God’s Equal command to love the neighbor as ourselves.—

These two great commandments, and upon which rest all the Law and the prophets, cannot be narrowed down to suit us but we must go up and conform to them. They proscribe neither nation nor sex—our neighbor may be either the oriental heathen the degraded European or the [en]slaved colored American. Neither must we prefer sex[,]‌ the slave mother as well as the slave-father. The oppress[ed], or nominally free woman of every nation or clime in whose soul is as evident by the image of God as in her more fortunate co[n]temporary of the male sex has a claim upon us by virtue of that irrevocable command equally as urgent. We cannot successfully evade duty because the suffering fellow woman be is only a woman! She too is a neighbor. The good samaritan of this generation must not take for their exemplars the priest and the Levite when a fellow wom[an] is among thieves—neither will they find their excuse in the custom as barbarous and anti-christian [sic] as any promulgated by pious Brahmin that they may be only females. The spirit of true philanthropy knows no sex. The true christian [sic] will not seek to exhume from the grave of the past its half developed customs and insist upon them as a substitute for the plain teachings of Jesus Christ, and the evident deductions of a more enlightened humanity.

There is too a fitness of time for any work for the benefit of God’s human creatures. We are told to keep Holy the Sabbath day. In what manner? Not by following simply the injunctions of those who bind heavy burdens, to say nothing about the same but as a man is better than a sheep but combining with God, worship the most active vigilance for the resur[r]‌ector from degradation[,] violence[,] and sin his creatures. In these cases particularly was the Sabbath made for man and woman if you please as there may be those who will not accept the term man in a generic sense. Christ has told us as it is lawful to lift a sheep out of the ditch on the Sabbath day, if a man is much better than a sheep.

Those with whom I am identified, namely the colored people of this country—and the women of the land are in the pit[,]‌ figuratively[,] are cast out. These were God[’]s requirements during the Prophecy of Isaiah and they are in full force today. God is the same yesterday[,] today[,] and forever. And upon this nation and to this people they come with all their significance[.] Within your grasp are three or four millions in chains in your southern territory and among and around about you are half a million allied to them by blood and to you by blood as were the Hebrew servants who realize the intensity of your hatred and oppression. You are the government[.] What it does to you enslaves the poor whites[,] [t]he free colored people[,] [t]he example of slave holders to accep[t] all.

What we aim to do is to put away this evil from among you and thereby pay a debt you now owe to humanity and to God[,]‌ and so turn from their chan[n]el the bitter waters of a moral servitude that is about overwhelming yourselves.

I speak plainly because of a common origin and because were it not for the monster slavery we would have a common destiny here—in the land of our birth. And because the policy of the American government so singularly set aside al[l]‌ows to all free speech and free thought: As the law of God must be to us the higher law in spite of powers[,] principalities[,] selfish priests[,] or selfish people to whom the minister it is important that we assert boldly that no where does God look upon this the chief of crimes with the least degree of allowance nor are we justified in asserting that he will tolerate those who in any wise support or sustain it.

Slavery[,]‌ American slavery[,] will not bear moral tests. It [exists] by striking down all the moral safeguards to society—[but] it is not then a moral institution. You are called upon as a man to deny and disobey the most noble impulses of manhood to aid a brother in distress—to refuse to strike from the limbs of those not bound for any crime the fetters by which his escape is obstructed. The milk of human kindness must be transformed into the bitter waters of hatred—you must return to his master he that hath escaped, no matter how every principle of manly independence revolts at the same. This feeling extends to every one allied by blood to the slave. And while we have in the North those who stand as guards to the institution the[y] must also volunteer as shippers away of the nominally free. You must drive from this home by a h[e]artless ostracism to the heathen shores when they fasted, bowed themselves, and spread sack cloth and ashes under them. Made long prayers &c[.] that they might be seen of men, but Isaiah told them God would not accept them. They must repent of their sins—put away iniquity from among them and then should their lights shine forth.

But we are or may be told that slavery is only an evil[,]‌ not a sin, and that too by those who say it was allowed among the Jews and therefore ought to be endured. Isaiah sets that matter to rest[.] [H]e shows that it is a sin handling it less delicately than many prophets in this generation. These are the sins that we are to spare[,] not the sin of enslaving men—of keeping back the hire of the laborer. You are to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens[,] to break every yoke and to let the oppressed go free. To deal out bread to the hungry and to bring the poor [ . . . ] speaking. Their cry has long been ascending to the Lord who then will assume the responsibility of prescribing times and seasons and for the pleading of their cause—[and of] righteous causes—and who shall overrule the voice of woman? Emphatically the greatest sufferer from chattel slavery or political proscription on this God’s footstool? Say we have Christ’s example who heal[e]d the sexes indiscriminately thereby implying an equal inheritance—who rebuffed the worldling Martha and approved innovator Mary. The Him who respecteth not persons but who imposes Christian duties alike upon all sexes, and who in his wise providence metes out his retribution alike upon all.

So friends we suffer the oppressors of the age to lead us astray; instead of going to the source of truth for guidance we let the adversary guide us as to what is our duty and God[’]s word. The Jews thought to[o]‌ that they were doing [H]is requirements when they did only that which was but a small sacrifice.

Tommy Douglas: 'My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea' The Story of Mouseland', political allegory - 1944

First broadcast by CBC, 1944, Canada

Story was written by Clarence Gillis, one of Douglas' close friends. Douglas made it famous.

This is the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played. Were born and died. And they lived much as you and I do. They even had a parliament. And every four years they had an election. They used to walk to the polls and cast their ballot. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. They got a ride for the next four years afterward too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day, all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big black fat cats.

Now if you think it’s strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats. You just look at the history of Canada for the last ninety years and maybe you’ll see they weren’t any stupider than we are.

Now I am not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows; they conducted the government with dignity. They passed good laws. That is, laws that were good for cats.

But the laws that were good for cats weren’t very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouse holes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much physical effort.

All the laws were good laws for cats. But oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn’t put up with it anymore they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse the polls.

They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats. The white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said all that Mouseland needs is more vision.  They said the trouble with Mouseland is those round mouse holes we’ve got. If you put us in we’ll establish square mouse holes. And they did. And the square mouse holes were twice as big as the round mouse holes. And now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn’t take that anymore they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. And then they went back to the white cats, and then to the black, they even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up with up cats with spots on them. They were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but they ate like a cat.

You see my friends the trouble wasn’t with the colour of the cats. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats they naturally look after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends watch out for the little fellow with an idea. He said to the other mice. “Look fellows why do we keep electing a government made up of cats, why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?” Oh, they said, he’s a Bolshevik. So they put him in jail. But I want to remind you that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.

Brian Mulroney: 'Peter Newman, go f*** yourself', Press Dinner - 2005

22 October 2005, Canada

Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada from 1984-1993. This was a response to Peter Newman's book, 'The Secret Mulroney Tapes'. This was produced for a lighthearted Press Dinner.

Your excellencies, Prime Minister, Justices of Supreme Court of Canada, Distinguished members of the press Gallery, Madames and Monsieurs, Good evening.

Peter Newman, go fuck yourself.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, and good night.

Pierre Trudeau: 'They also want money. Ransom money.' Televised statement on War Measures Act - 1970

16 October 1970, Ottawa, Canada

I am speaking to you at a moment of grave crisis, when violent and fanatical men are attempting to destroy the unity and the freedom of Canada. One aspect of that crisis is the threat which has been made on the lives of two innocent men. These are matters of the utmost gravity and I want to tell you what the government is doing to deal with them.

What has taken place in Montreal in the past two weeks is not unprecedented. It has happened elsewhere in the world on several recent occasions: it could happen elsewhere within Canada. But Canadians have always assumed that it could not happen here and as a result we are doubly shocked that it has.

Our assumption may have been naive, but it was understandable: understandable because democracy flourishes in Canada; understandable because individual liberty is cherished in Canada.

Notwithstanding these conditions, partly because of them it has been demonstrated now to us by a few misguided persons just how fragile a democratic society can be if democracy is not prepared to defend itself, and just how vulnerable to blackmail are tolerant, compassionate people.

Because the kidnappings and the blackmail are most familiar to you, I shall deal with them first.

The governments of Canada and Quebec have been told by groups of self-styled revolutionaries that they intend to murder in cold blood two innocent men unless their demands are met. The kidnappers claim they act as they do in order to draw attention to instances of social injustice.

But I ask them whose attention are they seeking to attract. The Government of Canada? The Government of Quebec?

Every government in this country is well aware of the existence of deep and important social problems. And every government to the limit of its resources and ability is deeply committed to their solution. But not by kidnappings and bombings. By hard work..

And if any doubt exists about the good faith or the ability of any government, there are opposition parties ready and willing to be given an opportunity to govern. In short there is available everywhere in Canada an effective mechanism to change governments by peaceful means. It has been employed by disenchanted voters again and again.

FEELlNGS EXPLOITED

Who are the kidnap victims'? To the victims' families they are husbands and fathers. To the kidnappers their identity is immaterial. The kidnappers' purposes would be served equally well by having in their grip you or me, or perhaps some child.

Their purpose is to exploit the normal, human feelings of Canadians and to bend those feelings of sympathy into instruments for their own violent and revolutionary ends.

What are the kidnappers demanding in return for the lives of these men? Several things. For one, they want their grievances aired by force in public on the assumption no doubt that all right-thinking persons would be persuaded that the problems of the world can be solved by shouting slogans and insults.

They want more. They want the police to offer up as a sacrificial lamb a person whom they assume assisted in the lawful arrest and proper conviction of certain of their criminal friends.

They also want money. Ransom money.

They want still more. They demand the release from prison of 17 criminals. and the dropping of charges against six other men, all of whom they refer to as "political prisoners."

Who are these men who are held out as latter-day patriots and martyrs? Let me describe them to you.

Three are convicted murderers; five others were jailed for manslaughter; one is serving a life imprisonment after having pleaded guilty to numerous charges related to bombings; another has been convicted of 17 armed robberies; two were once parolled but are now back in jail awaiting trial on charges of robberies.

NOT POLITICAL PRISONERS

Yet we are being asked to believe that these persons have been unjustly dealt with, that they have been imprisoned as a result of their political opinions, and that they deserve to be freed immediately, without recourse to due process of law.

The responsibility of deciding whether to release one or another of these criminals is that of the federal government. It is a responsibility that the government will discharge according to law.

To bow to the pressures of these kidnappers who demand that the prisoners be released would be not only an abdication of responsibility, it would lead to an increase in terrorist activities in Quebec.

It would be as well an invitation to terrorism and kidnapping across the country. We might well find ourselves facing an endless series of demands for the release of criminals from jails, from coast to coast, and we would find that the hostages could be innocent members of your family or of your neighborhood.

At the moment the FLQ is holding hostage two men in the Montreal area, one a British diplomat, the other a Quebec cabinet minister. They are threatened with murder.

CRUDE BLACKMAIL

Should governments give in to this crude blackmail, we would be facing the breakdown of the legal system and its replacement by the law of the jungle. The government's decision to prevent this from happening is not taken just to defend an important principle.

It is taken to protect the lives of Canadians from dangers of the sort I have mentioned. Freedom and personal security are safeguarded by laws; those laws must be respected in order to be effective.

If it is the responsibility of government to deny the demands of the kidnappers, the safety of the hostages is without question the responsibility of the kidnappers. Only the most twisted form of logic could conclude otherwise.

Nothing that either the government of Canada or the government of Quebec has done or failed to do, now or in the future, could possibly excuse any injury to either of these two innocent men.

The guns pointed at their heads have FLQ fingers on the triggers. Should any injury result, there is no explanation that could condone the acts. Should there be harm done to these men, the government promises unceasing pursuit of those responsible.

During the past 12 days, the governments of Canada and Quebec have been engaged in constant consultations. The course followed in this matter had the full support of both governments, and of the Montreal municipal authorities. In order to save the lives of Mr. Cross and Mr. Laporte, we have engaged in indirect communications with the kidnappers.

OFFER SPURNED

The offer of the federal government to the kidnappers of safe conduct out of Canada to a country of their choice, in return for the delivery of the hostages, has not yet been taken up. neither has the offer of the government of Quebec to recommend parole for the five prisoners eligible for parole.

This offer of safe conduct was made only because Mr. Cross and Mr. Laporte might be able to identify their kidnappers and to assist in their prosecution. By offering the kidnappers safe exit from Canada, we removed from them any possible motivation for murdering their hostages.

Let me turn now to the broader implications of the threat represented by the FLQ and similar organizations.

If a democratic society is to continue to exist, it must be able to root out the cancer of an armed, revolutionary movement that is bent on destroying the very basis of our freedom. For that reason the government, following an analysis of the facts, including requests of the government of Quebec and the city of Montreal for urgent action, decided to proclaim the War Measures Act.

It did so at 4:00 a.m. this morning, in order to permit the full weight of government to be brought quickly to bear on all those persons advocating or practising violence as a means of achieving political ends.

GOVERNMENT RELUCTANT

The War Measures Act gives sweeping powers to the government. It also suspends the operation of the Canadian Bill of Rights. I can assure you that the government is most reluctant to seek such powers, and did so only when it became crystal clear that the situation could not be controlled unless some extraordinary assistance was made available on an urgent basis.

The authority contained in the act will permit governments to deal effectively with the nebulous yet dangerous challenge to society represented by terrorist organizations. The criminal law as it stands is simply not adequate to deal with systematic terrorism.

The police have therefore been given certain extraordinary powers necessary for the effective detection and elimination of conspiratorial organizations which advocate the use of violence. These organizations, and membership in them, have been declared illegal.

The powers include the right to search and arrest without warrant, to detain suspected persons without the necessity of laying specific charges immediately, and to detain persons without bail .

POWERS DISTASTEFUL

These are strong powers and I find them as distasteful as I am sure you do. They are necessary, however, to permit the police to deal with persons who advocate or promote the violent overthrow of our democratic system.

In short, I assure you that the government recognizes its grave responsibilities in interfering in certain cases with civil liberties, and that it remains answerable to the people of Canada for its actions.

The government will revoke this proclamation as soon as possible.

As I said in the House of Commons this morning, the government will allow sufficient time to pass to give it the necessary experience to assess the type of statute which may be required in the present circumstances.

It is my firm intention to discuss then with the leaders of the opposition parties the desirability of introducing legislation of a less comprehensive nature. In this respect I earnestly solicited from the leaders and from all honourable members constructive suggestions for the amendment of the regulations.

Such suggestions will be given careful consideration for possible inclusion in any new statute.

A TRAP

I recognize, as I hope do others that this extreme position which governments have been forced into is in some respects a trap. It is a well-known technique of revolutionary groups who attempt to destroy society by unjustified violence, to goad the authorities into inflexible attitudes. The revolutionaries then employ this evidence of alleged authoritarianism as justification for the need to use violence in their renewed attacks on the social structure.

I appeal to all Canadians not to become so obsessed by what the government has done today in response to terrorism that they forget the opening play in this vicious game. That play was taken by the revolutionaries; they chose to use bombing, murder and kidnapping.

The threat posed by the FLQ terrorists and their supporters is out of all proportion to their numbers. This follows from the fact that they act stealthily and because they are known to have in their possession a considerable amount of dynamite.

To guard against the very real possibility of bombings directed at public buildings or utilities in the immediate future the government of Quebec has requested the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces to support the police in several places in the province of Quebec. These forces took up their positions yesterday.

VIOLENT DECADE

Violence. unhappily, is no stranger to this decade. The Speech from the Throne opening the current session of Parliament a few days ago said that "we live in a period of tenseness and unease.". We must not overlook the fact, moreover that violence is often a symptom of deep social unrest.

This government has pledged that it will introduce legislation which deals not only with symptoms but with the social causes which often underlie or serve as an excuse for crime and disorder.

It was in that context that I stated in the House of Commons a year ago that there was no need anywhere in Canada for misguided or misinformed zealots to resort to acts of violence in the belief that only in this fashion could they accomplish change.

There may be some places in the world where the law is so inflexible and so insensitive as to prompt such beliefs.

But Canada is not such a place. I said then, and I repeat now, that those who would defy the law and ignore the opportunities available to them to right their wrongs and satisfy their claims will receive no hearing from this government

We shall ensure that the laws passed by Parliament are worthy of respect. We shall also ensure that those laws are respected.

HATE CULTIVATED

We have seen in many parts of Canada all too much evidence of violence in the name of revolution in the past 12 months. We are now able to see some of the consequences of violence.

Persons who invoke violence are raising deliberately the level of hate in Canada. They do so at a time when the country must eliminate hate, and must exhibit tolerance and compassion in order to create the kind of society which we all desire.

Yet those who disrespect legal processes create a danger that law-abiding elements of the community, out of anger and out of fear, will harden their attitudes and refuse to accommodate any change or remedy any shortcomings. They refuse because fear deprives persons of their normal sense of compassion and their normal sense of justice.

This government is not acting out of fear. It is acting to prevent fear from spreading. It is acting to maintain the rule of law without which freedom is impossible.

It is acting to make clear to kidnappers, revolutionaries and assassins that in this country laws are made and changed by the elected representatives of all Canadians -not by a handful of self-selected dictators. Those who gain power through terror rule through terror. The government is acting, therefore, to protect your life and your liberty.

The government is acting as well to ensure the safe return of Mr. James Cross and Mr. Pierre Laporte. I speak for millions of Canadians when I say to their courageous wives and families how much we sympathize with them for the nightmare to which they have been subjected, and how much we all hope and pray that it will soon conclude.

STAND FIRM

Canada remains one of the most wholesome and humane lands on this earth. If we stand firm, this current situation will soon pass. We will be able to say proudly, as we have for decades, that within Canada there is ample room for opposition and dissent, but none for intimidation and terror.

There are very few times in the history of any country when all persons must take a stand on critical issues. This is one of those times; this is one of those issues.

I am confident that those persons who unleashed this tragic sequence of events with the aim of destroying our society and dividing our country will find that the opposite will occur. The result of their acts will be a stronger society in a unified country. Those who would have divided us will have united us.

I sense the unease which grips many Canadians today. Some of you are upset, and this is understandable. I want to reassure you that the authorities have the situation well in hand.

Everything that needs to be done is being done; every level of government in this country is well prepared to act in your interests.