Video Journals

Hello, I'm here at Pearson International Airport just outside of Toronto and I am on my way to Japan. Last year, I had the opportunity to visit China, next year I hope to go to India, and I've been to the U.S. a number of times.

The purpose of this travel, of course, is to ensure that the rest of the world knows that we are a great place in which to invest, do business, create new jobs. I think everybody knows today that we have entered a new era of hypercompetitive, globalized competition — and Ontario is doing well. And while it's true that we are coming under some serious challenges when it comes to our manufacturing sector in particular, and forestry as well, the fact is since we first earned the privilege of serving Ontarians as their government, through the course of the past three years, this economy has generated 288,000 net new jobs and the overwhelming majority of those jobs -- in fact, over 95% -- are good, high-paying, full-time jobs.

Now it seems to me that in this kind of era, of hypercompetitive globalized competition, there are a couple of things that a government could do. One is, you could just fold your arms and let the economy play itself out and just see what happens. Some people believe that the very best government, in all instances, is the least government. We disagree with that -- we're bringing a different approach. We think there are times when it makes really good sense for the government, on behalf of the people of Ontario, to roll up its sleeves and get involved. So we're doing that in the manufacturing sector -- we've set up a $500 million advanced manufacturing fund.

You know, just recently I announced the expansion of Diamond Aircraft just outside of London, Ontario. That came about as a result of a meeting I had in Austria just outside of Vienna back in January 2005, where I met with the principals behind Diamond Aircraft based in Austria, and worked hard with them since that point in time, to partner with them to make sure we had an expansion happening here. One of the reasons that I am going to Japan of course is to build on our success in the auto sector where we have had tremendous opportunities to develop here in the province of Ontario, and I hope to speak to you more about that from Japan.

In the meantime, thanks so much for tuning in and as this marks the beginning of the summer, I hope that you will have some good down time with those people that are most important to you in our lives, your family and closest friends, and have some good holiday time during the course of the summer.