Read the full transcript of former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s speech at Liberal Leadership Conference, March 9, 2025.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
[JEAN CHRÉTIEN:] Prime Minister Trudeau, President of the party, Ministers, deputy Ministers and MPs. Good evening.
This is an exceptional opportunity for me to be here this evening. This is my ninth Liberal convention that I’ve participated in. And it’s the seventh time that I’ve spoken at the podium. I would have never thought that I could do it at ninety-one. I’m still ready to fight.
I have fight in me yet. It’s great to see so many young people in the room today. It reminds me of my first Liberal convention when I was the president of the young Liberals at Laval University. In 1958, when Lester Pearson was elected Liberal leader. In 1958, not many of you were born, and he then became a very good prime minister.
I have kept coming to Liberal convention for sixty-eight years. I have kept coming back to Liberal convention because of what the Liberal Party stands for. I have kept coming back because of what the Liberal Party has delivered to make the lives of Canadians better. And I am here today because it is the Liberal Party that can best deliver better lives for Canadians in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.
Liberal Party Achievements
It is the Liberal Party that has given Canadians the Canadian Pension Plan and Medicare, the Charter of Rights and Freedom, the two official languages that put the indigenous rights into the Canadian constitution, brought in tough gun control laws, affirmative action. We have always supported women’s right to choose. We are the party who led the way to permit the second party in the country in the world to permit same-sex marriage.
The party is the party of diversity, equality, tolerance, openness, and inclusiveness. We Liberals call it the very essence of Canada, and it is the Liberal Party that gave us the Red Maple Leaf flag sixty years ago, which flew so proudly in homes across the country on the fourteenth of February to demonstrate our patriotism and love for Canada.
I want to say a special thank you to former prime ministers, Joe Clark, Harper, Martin, Campbell, for coming together with me to rally Canadians across the land to show the Canadian flag with pride, with a lot of pride.
Tribute to Justin Trudeau
But tonight, I want to pay tribute to Justin Trudeau. I want to pay tribute to him for taking the Liberal Party from third place to government and to three successive election victories. I want to pay tribute to what he and his team have accomplished: Canadian Child Benefit that reduced the poverty for the children in Canada, the ten dollars childcare that opened the labor market to so many women, the dental plan for low-income Canadians, for all the work he’s done on the environment. Ladies and gentlemen, these are Liberal policies.
Canada’s Economic Reality
And let’s talk about the economic reality of the moment now because Canada has done well. This I’m telling you, as I’ve said so many times, Canada is not broken.
Despite the attacks by the critics, Canada has the lowest deficit per capita in the G7, more than five times lower than in the United States. We have the lowest debt per capita in the G7. And in fact, the payment on the interest of the debt today is only eleven percent for each dollar of tax we pay. And compared to what we got when we formed the government in 1993, we were obliged to pay thirty-five cents in every tax dollar. That was a little problem the Tories left to me.
And we balanced the books. We took that mess from the Tories, and we balanced the books. And we had ten years of surplus. And the Tories came back to power, and we went back in debt. Now inflation is one point nine percent in Canada. It’s three point two and increasing south of the border. You know? I spent my life talking about job creation. Now the problem, we’re looking for manpower. It’s a difficult problem, but it’s better than the reverse.
I want to pay tribute to the government, to Mr. Trudeau, and to all the provincial governments for the fact that they have been with the municipalities put together the best program on the pandemic that we faced, better than any other country in the world. Our death rate was less than half of the United States.
Today, as a party, we’re choosing a new leader. A leader who will assume the mantle of Laurier and St. Laurent and Pearson, Trudeau’s father, Trudeau, the son, who has with him a very beautiful daughter. You know, I’m old enough to say that. And myself. And I want to say, that is very important, I want to take this moment to say how impressed I am by the quality of the candidates whose names are on the ballot tonight. It makes me very, very proud to be a Liberal.
The Elephant in the Room: U.S.-Canada Relations
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Long and fruitful friendship with Americans built over decades, which is falling apart before our eyes and is becoming something which is difficult to name. Mutual respect, trust, reciprocal cooperation, friendship, which have long characterized our relationship are now giving way to wariness and more and more open hostility from the Trump administration towards our country.
This is something we’ve never seen, but this is something that Canadians don’t understand, and I think the majority of Americans don’t understand it either without mentioning the rest of the planet. Why? Historians, journalists, and university researchers and experts at international politics are trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.
Well, in Canada, our elbows are up. We’re working together to unite to deal with this threat—the threat to our economy, our sovereignty. In other words, our very existence as a country.
At the beginning of the week, tariffs became a reality. And there will only be losers if you measure it in financial terms alone. But for Canadians, it’s more than that. It’s more than money that’s at stake here. We love our country and our independence. We love who we are because we’re unique in the world.
Standing Up to Tariffs
And I want to pay tribute to the Trudeau government and all the premiers for the way they have led Canada in the last few weeks in confronting the menace imposed on us with tariffs completely unjustified. Governments have absolutely right in retaliating as they are, and I congratulate all of them.
If it is necessary, the governments altogether can consider going further—anything the Americans wear. Really hurts by imposing an export tax on oil, gas, potash, steel, aluminum, and electricity. And we’ll use that money to build infrastructure that is needed in Canada. For example, to build a pipeline for natural gas from Alberta to Quebec. Alberta, the family of my mother, and Quebec of my father. So, you know, I think that if we do that, that will keep the steelworkers working in Canada for a long time.
And I could go on and on, but I’m limited in time. So the world has lived for eighty years with a rule-based order that has brought us peace and prosperity. It has enabled the United States to be the strongest, the most powerful country in the world. It has allowed all of us to sleep well every night. And now Donald Trump has decided to throw it all out the window.
We are going to be living very difficult times, but I’m confident, I’m very confident that the next prime minister will work with the premiers, the leaders of all the political parties in the House of Commons, and allies around the world to stand together to meet the challenges that Mr. Trump is creating for the whole world.
A History Lesson for Trump
And perhaps speaking of the president, it is time for a little history lesson for him. Probably does not realize that in 1776, Benjamin Franklin spent a year in Montreal trying to convince the people to join the American Revolution. And he was told by the Francophone, “no merci.” And they were right. Look what happened to the French language in Louisiana. The loyalists left the USA to come back to Upper Canada and the Atlantic, and the Francophone of Lower Canada, together, they built our independent country.
During the war of 1812, Americans who came to what is now Canada on a mission of conquest. They were defeated by Colonel de Salaberry in what is now Quebec and by leaders like the great indigenous chief Tecumseh, in what is now Ontario. And I don’t know. Apparently, some burned the White House at that time. But I’m too old to do it. No. It’s a joke.
Standing Up for Canada
But ladies and gentlemen, we have been friends and good neighbors with our southern neighbors. But we must stand up for ourselves. Historically, despite our friendship, we have had problems, but we always found a way to solve them.
We have worked with and collaborated with the United States in the past, and I’m telling you, we will do so in the future. We are good neighbors and friends, but we are a proud and independent country. But sometimes one must stand up for Canada. We must always be vigilant, and I did so as minister and as prime minister.
Way back in 1968, when the Americans sent a ship, the Manhattan, with no Canadian flag through our northern passage, they wanted to prove that the passage was international water. As Minister of Northern Affairs, I flew to Pond Inlet at the northern extremity of Baffin Island to confront them. I was under Louis St. Laurent icebreaker. I called the captain. I said I will be there in an hour, and it’s better to have the Canadian flag at the mast. When I arrived, there was a Canadian flag at the mast. And I had a big smile.
You know, we had other problems of the same nature. You remember Newfoundland, the so-called fish war, when we arrested the estate, yes. When my friend Tobin made a great show at the UN with the illegal nets. Yes. And we were successful. They changed the international laws after that because there was a problem that needed to be fixed. And I’m quite proud of it, and it was quite a time.
I was traveling in the west. I came back. It was early week. So it was a Thursday early week. So my wife said, we’ll have a good rest for the weekend. And I said, perhaps not because I’m declaring war to Spain. She did not sleep.
But, you know, we had another problem on the West Coast. You know, we have Vancouver Island, the mainland, and Canadian waters. And the fishermen from Oregon and Washington State were going to Alaska, but they were not respecting our water. So we threatened them to block the passage on Canadian water and forced them to go in the high seas. It was a very difficult problem. The senator Velasquez said it was almost a question of war.
So I discussed that, and I talked with my friend Bill Clinton, and he said that south of Canada, there’s not much I can do. I said if you cannot do something, I will do something. And they were forced to respect our laws. Some were taken to courts. And after that, the problem was solved because we stood for us strongly.
But for eight years, I was a colleague of Bill Clinton, and he would always say that Canada was his best ally. And that I was a very good friend, and we still are very good friends. But we worked together, and we found solution together. And this is what will happen in the future too. We’ve always been good neighbors with anybody.
So I was proud too when I was prime minister, and I had to say no to the participation in the American invasion of Iraq. That decision told the United States and the world that Canada is a proud independent country. Of course, the business community was very nervous. They were afraid of retaliation. So I told them, okay. Give me the list of all the goods and all the services that the Americans are buying from us because they like us. I’ve not received the list yet.
Canada’s Independence
So we will work in collaboration with them, but they have to understand, and everybody understands that we are a very proud country. And for me, I can tell you that sometimes I can say this from one old guy to another old guy: “Stop this nonsense. Canada will never join the United States.“
I can tell you that my parents were not millionaires from New York. They were workers from Shawinigan. But my mother taught us good manners. She would have been ashamed of me if I had treated anyone the way that the president treated my prime minister and the president of Ukraine in the last few weeks.
The reason we don’t want to become American is because of our values as Canadians. We are proud Canadians, and, yes, we owe in fact, we owe a debt of recognition to Mr. Trump. He has united us as never before. So I want to say thank you to him, and I think I will propose him for the Order of Canada. I’m just kidding.
Prime Minister, I would travel across the world. I went to the UN, to the G7, to NATO, to the Commonwealth, to the Francophonie, and to all sorts of international meetings on the five continents. When I came back to Canada, each time I would say that the job of being prime minister is perhaps the easiest of any country in the world. Canada is the country that works the best, I think, much better than any other country in the world. And it’s why there are millions and millions of human beings from all over the world who would like to come and become Canadian citizens.
There was a survey not long ago. They were asking the people, where would you want to go if you had to start again your life? And Canada was number one. Why? It’s because Canada is the land of freedom.
Canada: The Land of Opportunity
[JEAN CHRÉTIEN:] Canada is the land of opportunity, the land of generosity, the land of tolerance, the land of stability, the land of rule of laws. It is our land that is the envy of the world.
Canada will continue to rise through North Strong and Free. Nobody will starve us into submission because Canada is and will remain the best country in the world.
