Graduation Address

"Convocation Address" by Richard J. Currie (18 October 1987): 1-3. (UA Case 69, Box 3).

Lady Aitken, Ladies and Gentlemen:

On hearing the very kind and flattering comments of the University Orator, Professor Rowan, I was reminded of the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in response to a similarly glowing introduction. He replied that he would pray for the souls of the persons that evening — for the soul of the introducer for being such a flatterer — and for his own soul for enjoying it so much.

I thought also of a man who wanted to express his gratitude for an honour given to him and to do so with proper humility. But he — like me today — was nervous and he got his lines mixed. So he began by saying -

"I certainly don't appreciate the honour, but I sure do deserve it."

Whether I deserve it or not, I want you to know how happy I am to receive it and to realize that you, through me, are paying honour to all my business colleagues and associates and to commercial activities in this country in general.

Back in September 1955, when I came to UNB, I did so on a Lord Beaverbrook Undergraduate Scholarship. It is therefore both gratifying and heartwarming to me today to meet Lady Aitken, Your Chancellor, and to see Mr. Robert Tweedie being awarded an honorary doctorate later on. On a hot August morning in 1955 when we first met, I as a sweating seventeen-year-old sitting at the end of a table surrounded by distinguished New Brunswickers, Bob Tweedie sat at the other end of the table as the Chairman of the Beaverbrook Scholarship Selection Committee.

Perhaps Canada's greatest Prime Minister, the Liberal Sir Wilfred Laurier, once said that "the second half of the twentieth century belongs to Canada." Well, here we are, well into the second half of the second half and I should think any impartial observer of our progress both economically and nationally — Laurier himself — would believe we have fallen short of those lofty expectations.

Canada's profligate ways in the last twenty years have reached epic proportions. Canada now has a foreign debt of $225 billion (U.S.) and ranks second only to the United States as the largest foreign borrower in the world. We read of Latin American debt but Canada's foreign debt approximates that of Argentina, Mexico and Brazil combined. Growth in debt so far this decade parallels the developing world — up fifty per cent for Canada, up fifty-eight per cent for the ten largest developing nations. As a businessman, I can tell you that money is borrowed on assets, not promises. And assets take generations to build — and only a short period of time to spend or to encumber with debt.

I have always believed that the purpose of an education was to train people to think. And one of my observations on life is that thinking is a painful process — that is why so few people engage in its practice. It would be my suggestion to you today that we Canadians have not done much thinking for some time. We are simply living beyond our means and borrowing from the efforts of our forebears and against the efforts of our children to support our present comfort. By placing comfort ahead of productivity, we have deluded ourselves into thinking that we are not part of McLuhan's "Global Village" and that by some happenstance or divine intervention we will be excluded from the economic winds of change that blow unceasingly round the planet.

Economics and capitalism and business are important even if one does not like their practitioners as individuals or as a group. Business is important because economic progress precedes social progress. Show me a nation that is economically backward and socially progressive and I would change my view. Since no example exists, I can safely postulate that all our social progress and programs have come from an economically sound nation — or in Canada's case, a country that once was economically sound and is now living by borrowing against that previously earned asset base.

While Canada is now reaching the limits of its profligacy and creditworthiness, we now have the opportunity to restore both our standards and our assets by endorsing the free trade agreement with the United States.

In my opinion, free trade or freer trade is the most important decision facing Canadians of this and future generations. It is so important to Canada that while the organization I represent has substantial interests in milling, bread making, chocolate and candy making and in consumer tissue products — all of which would suffer the severest competition from the U.S. in free trade — we have been and are totally committed to supporting free trade. After all, what's a little competition?

In explaining why we take that position, I should initially point out that Canada is the only major world trader which doesn't have ready domestic access to a market of at least 100 million people. Past Canadian leaders recognized this deficiency and have actively developed trade with the United States, so much so that total trade between Canada and the United States is now approaching nearly $200 billion per year and the Canadian surplus is over $22 billion. The United States does more trade with Canada than it does with Japan: more with Ontario alone than with the entire European economic community. Today some three million jobs out of our total labour force of 12 million are dependent on exports. The harsh reality is that we really can't send high labour content products to EEC countries or Japan because of either tariffs or high cost. The only major market in which we are both allowed and competitive is the United States. For us to shut off the opportunity for freer trade with that country would quite simply be madness.

In the past three decades, the proportion of manufactured goods in our exports has increased from eight to forty-two per cent, largely as a result of our one major free trade agreement — the automobile agreement with the United States. Ever larger access to the U.S. market can do wonders for our productivity and economic structure and thereby our social progress if further tariff and non-tariff barriers are removed.

Trade barriers of any kind weaken a nation's ability to offer competitively priced goods and services, both at home and abroad. And anyone who wants to hide behind a barrier wants to do so because he is afraid to compete. And if I know Canadians, I know we love a good scrap — anyone watching the recent Canada-Russia hockey series could see that.

A number of people are concerned about our identity as a nation if we develop the freer trade option. That is simply empty rhetoric. To them I would only ask: are the French less French, the Italians less Italian, or the British less British since joining the European Economic Community?

It is very easy to find arguments against any form of risk or change. And on the free trade issue these arguments, usually by special interest groups, are at the moment constantly being put before us. But it is our obligation as educated people to think and think clearly, and as present and future leaders in the community, to face reality squarely. Having done so, I believe the inescapable conclusion is that of Donald Macdonald, the former Liberal finance minister. "I don't see Canada as a sort of sheltered workshop for the inefficient, the incompetent, or the less than capable." The way for us to afford higher wages is to be more productive. And if we learn to specialize and use modern technology, get larger scale and serve the larger market, we will be a richer country. Then we can afford better social programs and afford more cultural development.

We Canadians have the education — we have the energy. What we need now is the same market opportunities as our American neighbours. With free trade, the dislocations for a number of sectors of the economy will be great. This generation will have to sacrifice short term. But surely sacrifice is nothing new to Canadians once they have been presented with the real facts and consequences — previous generations did it twice in this century — and we performed magnificently as a nation in both world wars. War is competition at its keenest. You know we're good competitors.

Now we should direct our competitive energies to the outside world and not to misguided squabbling inside Canada. Today it is an issue of our economic survival. If we are to avoid turning our country into an economic and ultimately a social backwater there is no turning back from free trade. We must have the courage to go forward.

I suppose any Commencement speaker cannot resist the temptation to do a little moralizing and dispense some gratuitous advice. And I must confess I fall into that category. I hope you will find something worthwhile in it. It is directed to each of you as individuals.

First, have courage. In a collective sense the kind of thing we have to find as Canadians at this time with regard to free trade. You as graduates of UNB have the ability to analyze. But so do thousands of others. What will distinguish you from them will be the courage to act on your own analysis. President John Kennedy, who was given an honorary degree by this university exactly thirty years ago once said that "change is the law of life." In my view, you must either create change or act on change or be content to live your life in what Beaverbrook called "the dull grey mass of mediocrity." And if you act, and it doesn't work out, try to remember that it is your plan which is a failure: you are not a failure.

Secondly, have integrity. We all make mistakes, infallibility is beyond any of us. But integrity, the ability to decide between right and wrong, is always within us. It is simply a question of our own choice. A quote to remember is Emerson: "The Essence of greatness is the belief that virtue is enough." Have integrity in your work. Your work is your most important activity in life. Again Emerson: "Tell me what you do, that I may know you." In Ecclesiastes, the poet, after sampling all life styles concluded, in essence, "Follow God's laws and do your work well." And my late father told me to "bury him one day and go back to work the next."

My third and final admonition (mercifully you might say) is to have a positive attitude and develop a sense of humour. Nothing is as indomitable as the human spirit as long as it is given a chance. Your attitude largely determines what you can do. And humour helps relieve the tension in any situation. Most important of all, it keeps us away from feelings of self-importance. It punctures our pretensions and saves us from becoming pompous and self-righteous. If you want to be able to cope with tension, if you want to get along with people, if you want to be successful and at the same time able to enjoy life, then learn to laugh at yourself. Every now and then a popular song comes along that has great words. One perhaps encapsulates better than I ever could the feeling of a positive attitude and a sense of humour. I remember it being quoted by Colin B. Mackay at a graduation exercise many years ago:

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you're young at heart
For as rich as you are
It's much better by far
To be young at heart
You can go to extremes
With impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams
Fall apart at the seams
And if you should survive
To a hundred and five
Look at all you'll derive
Out of being alive
And here is the best part
You have a head start
If you are among the very
Young at heart.

When I was a student here, one of the great "pop" favourites was Elvis Presley. And one thing I learned at UNB and have retained to this day, is that ability many times comes in strange and unpredictable packages. Although he was seen by many to be what my daughters today would call an "airhead", in fact, Elvis had acute observations on people and expressed them succinctly. One day he was asked the question, "What is important in life?" After a brief reflection, that supposedly ill-educated swivel-hipped offspring of what was known then as "white trash" replied: "Someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to" Think about that: "Someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to".

That, ladies and gentlemen, friends and graduates, is the essence of life. I hope each of you finds all three.