{"id":50811,"date":"2015-05-30T07:44:52","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T23:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=50811"},"modified":"2015-05-30T07:44:52","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T23:44:52","slug":"pm-harpers-statement-in-nova-scotia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/30\/pm-harpers-statement-in-nova-scotia\/","title":{"rendered":"PM Harper’s statement in Nova Scotia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Peter<\/a>
Peter McKay (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stellarton, Nova Scotia \u2014\u00a0Prime Minister Stephen Harper today delivered the following remarks in Stellarton, Nova Scotia:<\/p>\n

\u201cWell thank you very much everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter, Nazanin, family, mother MacKay.<\/p>\n

\u201cColleagues, Member of Parliament Scott Armstrong, thanks for joining us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard Senator McInnis was here \u2013 there he is \u2013 Senator, good to see you.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of the riding association, ladies and gentlemen, friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a few moments your Member of Parliament, Peter, will be making an announcement about his future plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some of you might have an inkling about what he\u2019s going to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyway, I\u2019m going to try to not pre-empt Peter\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t mind telling you that I\u2019m here in a reflective state of mind, a mixture of tremendous pride and more than just a little bit of sorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo introduce Peter three ways: Peter MacKay is an outstanding public servant, Peter MacKay is a great person, and Peter MacKay is a historic figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I just want to talk for a few moments about each one of those three things.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know about the outstanding public servant.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 18 years, Peter has served the fine people of Central Nova through thick and thin, doing day in and day out all this riding could ask of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s had his hands full.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor part of that period, he was Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one of my election campaigns \u2013 I have to tell you an aside \u2013 one of my election campaigns I was in Newfoundland and Labrador, I was in Fabian \u2013 Fabian was their MP \u2013 I was in his riding.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd during my speech there was a cute little girl about five or six years old who came up and did this and said that and was going all over, and I eventually had to give up doing my speech entirely, she took such attention away from me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyway I think we\u2019ve resolved this for now.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor part of that period as I said, Peter was Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, making the many decisions of an organization that plays a vital role in the economic life of this important part of our great country.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, of course, Peter has also been an outstanding public servant on the national stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, over the past nine and a half years, he has held some of the most important executive positions in the Government of Canada, successively Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of National Defence, Minister of Justice and Attorney General.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he has been critical to shaping transformations in each of these areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Foreign Affairs, he led a reorientation of policy to boldly assert Canada\u2019s interests and to project Canada\u2019s values, to take clear, sometimes tough, principled stands, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our friends, and to stand up to those who threaten them and us.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt National Defence, Peter MacKay was the second-longest serving Minister in Canadian history, overseeing the re-equipping of the Canadian Armed Forces after the \u2018Decade of Darkness,\u2019 the re-emergence of the Canadian military as a player in global security, and the restoration of the status of our men and women in uniform as members of our greatest national institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd of course, long before he became Minister of Justice, Peter was a voice for profound change in our system of criminal justice, to make criminal justice once again about more than the criminal, to make it about law-abiding citizens, their property and their families and, especially, to make it about victims of criminal acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know that among his many achievements, Peter will consider passage, this year, of the Victims Bill of Rights as among his most cherished.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that leads me to Peter MacKay the person, a great person.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter\u2019s passion for criminal justice reform has been more than just a policy passion; it has been all about people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen it up close.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter has long been involved in and close to those who have sought criminal justice reform.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he cares deeply about the police officers and law-enforcement officials who get so little thanks but keep us secure.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he cares about the families who seek only safe streets and communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd most of all, because he cares and has been close to those who have been crime\u2019s worst victims and those working hard to see them better treated.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I said, I\u2019ve seen this up close many times.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as I have seen, many times, how much Peter is liked and admired by those who have worked with him, especially by his colleagues, his Parliamentary colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may from time to time disagree with him, maybe even occasionally get mad at him, but they also know Peter cares about them and does his best for them; a \u2018team guy,\u2019 in the deepest sense of the term.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Peter\u2019s passions for people has been his long involvement, probably not realized by most, in the organization Big Brothers Big Sisters.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, that\u2019s not the Peter MacKay I first heard about in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first met Peter \u2013 and I suspect he doesn\u2019t even remember that meeting, I was out of Parliament, for good I thought, and he had been elected for the first time not long before \u2013 anyway I met the young Peter MacKay, \u2018sexiest male MP\u2019 and all that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t bother me; personally I could never see it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyway, Peter can confirm this though \u2013 this is much later when we became colleagues \u2013 Peter can confirm this, we talked about it more than once in my office, and I always told him a good bachelor life is no match for a good married life, and no match for a good family life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Peter to make sure he didn\u2019t miss out on that, and I told him that he would be good at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how did I know that?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot just because of his role in Big Brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut because I saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw how in the relationship he struck up with my son Ben, when Ben was just a young boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow Peter probably doesn\u2019t really appreciate the impression he made on Ben, but after spending a few times together, for a long time with Ben it was just \u2018Peter MacKay this; Peter MacKay that\u2019 all the time \u2013 so much for Dad the Prime Minister \u2013 it was all about Peter MacKay, like the big brother he never had.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was wonderful to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what\u2019s even better is to see Nazanin and little Kian, and a sibling to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWonderful to see even though I knew down deep that it would lead to tonight, when no matter how much you enjoy being part of this great ride we are on, the time comes when you want to get off, even though, because this ride never actually stops, getting off is never easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut friends when that time comes, Peter MacKay will be seen for what he is: a historic figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor, my friends, when we created the new Conservative Party of Canada nearly 12 years ago, there were two signatures on that agreement: my own and Peter\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment in October 2003 changed, without a shadow of a doubt, the course of Canadian politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a sense of destiny; it took a spirit of humility; and it took a willingness to compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were difficult decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruthfully, for reasons I won\u2019t revisit, more difficult on Peter\u2019s side of the ledger than on mine, but difficult for both of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertain policies, certain structures that seemed so important then, had to be set aside.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd frankly, they really don\u2019t seem so important now anyway, because we all know how different the future turned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho remembers Paul Martin\u2019s 250-seat-majority government?<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidered a foregone conclusion in September 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo as a good Atlantic Canadian, as two guys descended from good Atlantic Canadians, we had to be able to read the waters, to see that a tide was running which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, to success, and that if we missed it, to pursue Shakespeare\u2019s famous statement, the voyage of all of our lives \u2013 the lives of all Canada\u2019s conservatives \u2013 would have been bound in shallows and miseries.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter recognized that moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd because he did, hundreds of thousands of Canadians were united from coast to coast to coast and were able to elect three times a strong, stable, national \u2013 and eventually \u2013 majority Conservative government.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it has made all the difference in so many things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve already talked about the things Peter himself has led.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been many things; big things, little things.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig things: I think about a world, the world we\u2019re in now, where so many governments are spiralling down in debt, service cuts and tax hikes, but where in Canada we have a balanced budget, new investments, and tax breaks that put money into the pockets of our hard-working families and senior citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd little things: like we can pay for some advertising to make sure Canadian families and seniors get those benefits, and know that the money will actually be spent on advertising.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like that back in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, Peter and I, all of us, here in the room and many other rooms like it across the country, we have travelled far together, symbolized by this united party, by Peter\u2019s wonderful young family, and by this great country, the best in the world, better than ever before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, Peter, for your leadership, for your contributions, and for your friendship.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I have to leave Peter some things to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo dear friends, please join me in welcoming to the podium Nova Scotia\u2019s most distinguished son, one of Canada\u2019s great Conservatives, your Member of Parliament, Peter MacKay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stellarton, Nova Scotia \u2014\u00a0Prime Minister Stephen Harper today delivered the following remarks in Stellarton, Nova Scotia: \u201cWell thank you very …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":3244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-politics","mauthors-press-release-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}