Acceptance Speech / Discours dacceptation

Speech by / Discours prononc par Justin Trudeau Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada / Chef du Parti libral du Canada

Ottawa Le 14 avril 2013 / April 14, 2013

Check against delivery. / Seul le discours fait foi.

Merci, mes amis. merci. Normally I'd start by thanking family and friends for putting up with my absences and allowing me to go off and campaign, but that's not exactly right. My decision to seek the leadership was never in spite of my responsibility to my family, but because of it. And therefore family and friends were always at the very heart of this campaign. We did this together. Merci Sophie. Merci Xavier et Ella-Grace. mes collgues, Deborah, Karen, Joyce, Martha, Martin, David, George et Marc... et aux milliers de Canadiens qui ont collabor vos campagnes... je tiens vous dire : nous ne sommes pas des adversaires, mais bien des allis. Votre courage, intelligence, et dvouement continueront de faire honneur au Parti Libral du Canada. Pour le travail quil a accompli pour garder ce parti en sant, je dois remercier du fond de mon cur, mon ami, mon collgue, un grand Canadien, Bob Rae. Bob, we continue to need your leadership, your wisdom and your unparalleled commitment to the country and to our party.. This has been a great campaign. We are fiercely proud that it has been fueled by volunteers. More than twelve thousand Canadians stepped up. Thank you for your dedication to making this wonderful country even better. Like every effective organization, this one has had principled, brilliant, and generous leadership. Katie Telford and Gerald Butts. My friends and compatriots. Thank you for what youve done, for what youre doing and for what we are going to do together. Rob and Jodi, George, Aidan and Ava, thank you for sharing Gerry and Katie with us. My fellow Liberals, it is with great respect for those who have stood in this place before me, and great resolve to do the hard work required in front of us, that I accept, with humility, the confidence you have placed in me. Thank you. All of you. For your trust. For your hope. For choosing to be part of this movement were building. And on this lovely spring evening in our nation's capital, I am honored to stand with you, proud to be the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Je suis fier dtre le chef du Parti libral du Canada. My friends, this is the last stop of this campaign. But the first stop of the next one.

Over the past 6 months, I have been to hundreds of communities from coast to coast to coast. Ive met, talked with, and learned from thousands and thousands of Canadians. And because of your hard work, more than one hundred thousand voters have sent a clear message: Canadians want better leadership and a better government. Canadians want to be led, not ruled. They are tired of the negative, divisive politics of Mr. Harper's Conservatives. And unimpressed that the NDP, under Mr. Mulcair, have decided that if you cant beat them, you might as well join them. We are fed up with leaders who pit Canadians against Canadians. West against East, rich against poor, Quebec against the rest of the country, urban against rural. Canadians are looking to us, my friends. They are giving us a chance, hopeful that the party of Wilfrid Laurier can rediscover its sunny ways. Hopeful that positive politics has a fighting chance against the steady barrage of negativity that you and I both know is coming soon to TV screens across Canada. The phone messages, our volunteers tell us, have already started. To adapt a sentiment from the great American President Franklin D. Roosevelt: never before in this country have the forces of negativity, cynicism and fear been so united in their hostility toward one candidate. The Conservative Party will now do what it does. It will try to spread fear. It will sow cynicism. It will attempt to convince Canadians that we should be satisfied with what we have now. For at the heart of their unambitious agenda is the idea that better is just not possible. That to hope for something more from our politics and our leaders, more humanity, more transparency, more compassion, is naive and inevitably, will lead to disappointment. And they will promote that divisive and destructive idea with passionate intensity. They will do so for a simple reason... They are afraid. But... And I want to make this perfectly clear... My fellow Canadians, it is not my leadership that Mr. Harper and his party fear. Its yours.

There is nothing that these Conservatives fear more than an engaged and informed Canadian citizen. My friends, if I have learned one thing in this life, its that our country is blessed with countless numbers of activist citizens, from all walks of life, and of all political views. They have come out by the thousands over the course of this campaign. Theyve gathered by the hundreds in places like Ponoka Alberta and Oliver BC, Prince Albert Saskatchewan and le-des-Chnes Manitoba. Canadians who thought they were sending community leaders to be their voice in Ottawa, but instead got only Mr. Harpers voice back in their communities. Weve seen their hopeful faces in crowds of Canadians gathered in Windsor and Whitby, Mississauga and Markham. Middle class Canadians who are putting much into the economy and getting too little in return. Weve seen hard-working Atlantic Canadians from Edmunston to Halifax, from Summerside to St Johns, who have decided that this is a government that does not share their values. To my friends in Labrador, I look forward to seeing you very soon. Weve met young Aboriginal leaders from all across this country, from Tkemlups to Whapmagoostui, who are simply tired of being forced to the margins of this country. With the courage to walk 1600 kilometres through a Canadian winter to make the point that they will be Idle no More. Les francophones qui vivent Shediac, Sudbury, St-Boniface et partout au pays veulent que leurs enfants spanouissent en franais. Votre dtermination minspire. Et elle doit inspirer tout le pays. Quebecers, from Gatineau to Gasp, who want to re-engage with this country. With their country. Who have no time for the divisive issues of their parents past, but want to work with Canadians who share their values to build a better country for all our kids. Je veux prendre, justement, un moment pour m'adresser directement tous les Qubcoises et Qubcois. Vos tmoignages et votre appui des derniers mois m'ont profondment touch. J'ai tellement appris de nos conversations et de nos rencontres. Je ne prends rien pour acquis. Je sais que la confiance, a doit se mriter. Et je compte bien mriter la vtre.

Je suis confiant en l'avenir. Je vais vous dire pourquoi. Les Qubcois ont toujours t des btisseurs. De Champlain Laurier, jusqu aujourdhui, ils ont activement particip construire ce pays avec tous les autres Canadiens. Notre tche n'est pas termine. Nous faisons face dnormes dfis. Aider les gens de la classe moyenne joindre les deux bouts. Rconcilier la croissance conomique et la protection de l'environnement. Jouer un rle positif et dterminant l'chelle mondiale. Pour les surmonter, nous devons faire preuve d'audace et d'ambition, mes amis. Toujours de laudace et de l'ambition. Soyons francs. Nous ne convaincrons pas tout le monde. Il y aura toujours des sceptiques. Des gens qui diront que notre pays est trop grand, trop rempli de diffrences pour tre bien gr et pour que tous y soient bien reprsents. Ils se trompent, mes amis. Je ne prtends pas que ce sera toujours facile. Qu'il n'y aura pas d'obstacles sur notre chemin. Que nous ne devrons pas faire certains compromis. Le Canada est un grand projet inachev. Et c'est nous avec tous les autres Canadiens d'en faire le pays que nous voulons. Le temps est venu pour nous d'crire un nouveau chapitre dans l'histoire de notre pays. Laissons d'autres les vieilles chicanes et les vieux dbats qui alimentent la grogne. Laissons d'autres la rhtorique ultra partisane et la faon dpasse de faire de la politique. Laissons d'autres les attaques personnelles. Qubcoises et Qubcois, soyons nouveau des btisseurs du Canada. Pour que notre pays soit la hauteur des rves et des ambitions qui sont partags dun bout lautre du pays. Pour laisser nos enfants un meilleur monde que celui qui a nous a t lgu par nos parents. Mes amis, le Parti libral regagnera la confiance des Canadiens quand il leur prouvera qu'il est l pour les servir.

C'est la tche qui nous attend. Et cest celle qui me guidera en tant que chef du Parti libral du Canada. la nouvelle gnration de Canadiens et tous les jeunes qui ne se sentent pas interpels par la politique, j'ai un message bien simple vous livrer. Votre pays a besoin de vous. Il a besoin de votre nergie et de votre passion. Il a besoin de votre idalisme et de vos ides. Le mouvement que avons bti au cours des six derniers mois, c'est le vtre. Il vous appartient. C'est le mouvement avec lequel nous allons changer la politique. C'est le mouvement qui nous permettra de rformer nos institutions politiques, de faire de lunion de l'environnement et de l'conomie une vraie priorit, et de jouer un rle positif et constructif sur la plante. My fellow Liberals, Canadians are looking to us. This campaign has been their campaign, more than just ours. They want something better. They refuse to believe that better is not possible. They see the country their parents and grandparents worked so hard to build, and want to hand an even better country to their children. Canadians share deep values that cannot be shaken, no matter how hard the Conservative Party may try. Optimism. Openness. Compassion. Service to community. Generosity of spirit. We want to believe that change can happen. We want leadership that will shape our best instincts into an even better country. But Canadians will not suffer fools gladly. Canadians turned away from us because we turned away from them. Because Liberals became more focused on fighting with each other, than fighting for Canadians. Well, I dont care if you thought my father was a great or arrogant. It doesnt matter to me if you were a Chretien-Liberal, a Turner-Liberal, a Martin-Liberal or any other kind of Liberal. The era of hyphenated Liberals ends right here, tonight. From this day forward, we welcome all Liberals as Canadian Liberals. United in our dedication to serve and lead Canadians.

Unity not just for unitys sake, but unity of purpose. I say this to the millions of middle-class Canadians, and the millions more who work hard every day to join the middle-class... Under my leadership, the purpose of the Liberal Party of Canada will be you. I promise that I will begin, spend and end every day thinking about and working hard to solve your problems. I know that you are optimistic about us, but cautiously so. You are, after all, Canadians. You know that hope is a fine thing, but that without an equal measure of hard work to back it up, it will be fleeting. So I know that you will judge us by the tenacity of our work ethic, the integrity of our efforts, and, come 2015, the clarity of our plan to make our country better. That is as it should be. I know how lucky I have been in my life. Lucky, most of all, to have learned so much from so many Canadians. To learn that, above all else in this country, leadership means service. I love this country, my friends, and I believe in it deeply. It deserves better leadership than it has now. So let us be clear-eyed about what we have accomplished. We have worked hard and we have had a great campaign. We are united, hopeful and resolute in our purpose. But know this: we have won nothing more and nothing less than the opportunity to work even harder. Work even harderto prove ourselves worthy of leading this great country. Sachez que ce que nous avons gagn aujourdhui, ce nest rien de plus rien de moins que loccasion de travailler encore plus fort pour se montrer dignes de diriger ce grand pays. We should be deeply, deeply grateful for that opportunity. As your leader, I fully intend to make sure we make the most of it. Change can happen. Canadians want leadership that will work with them to make it happen. Be hopeful my fellow Liberals. Work hard. Stay focused on Canadians. We can lead the change so many people want.

A better Canada is always possible. Ensemble, nous allons le btir. Thank you. Merci.