Honorable Mike Harcourt,
former Vancouver Mayor, currently Premier of the Province of BC
Thank you very much Art and to our many distinguished visitors,
and delegates and participants in this conference, it gives a
great deal of pleasure to welcome you to Vancouver. I am a bit
of a homer I was the mayor of the City and I think you will agree
that objectively it is one of the most beautiful cities in the
world. And I hope while you are here you get a chance to go out
and enjoy the wonderful beauty of the Province and what we are
particularly proud of the magnificent diversity of people how
have chosen to move here from all over the world. And I hope you
get a chance to enjoy the very warm hospitality of our citizens
and if you'll understand that if it rains which only happens occasionally.
I could think of no more worthwhile event to host in our province
than Child Health 2000. Your work at this world Congress is absolutely
vital and it's valued by all of us who care about our children's
health. It's my hope that our British Columbia's hospitality will
help inspire you to accomplish a great deal over the next five
days as you have already at the other conferences that have occurred
in Vancouver.
It is easy to become overwhelmed by the challenges or you can
take them on as your doing, which is just rolling up your sleeves
and getting on with positive changes what we can do. Here in British
Columbia, as I said, nature has blessed us with a prosperity that
has allowed us to attain a good measure of success in over all
children health.
Together with this good fortune we work very hard to maintain
healthy environments for our children: tobacco free as much as
possible as we see on the T-shirts of the young people in front
of us here. To provide services that contribute to good health
to offer one of the world's best health care systems. Our Medicare
system in which quality health care isn't a privilege it's a right
of each and every British Columbia. This really doesn't mean that
we have all the answers, and fact there's much that we can do
and we can do a much better job, and that's why we are here, to
listen and to learn as well as prosperity and share some of our
experiences here in BC. And I believe that doing a much better
job is something we share with jurisdictions all over the world
that's why I am delighted, Dr. Tze that we have 14 ministers of
health and so many others who can work and share with us. Perhaps
our greatest challenge is to over come the disparities that children
in different parts of the province face and disparities amongst
children of different social economic status were working hard
to address those disparities, and I know that you are working
hard as well to deal with these disparities across the globe.
And in doing so your confronting the issues of resources resource
distribution and political will.
Art Hister referred to one of the great people of our planet.
Who I have had the honor to meet previously at these conferences
James Grant. Who so eloquently in his message to this conference
said, "Human kind's in composite to satisfy the basic needs
of all," must be matched by a new ethic that rejects the
notion that poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance, and discrimination
are inevitable. Well, they are not inevitable. With political
will and understanding we have the capacity for real progress.
We have the resources, we have the people, we need the political
will. So when we talk about improving children health, let's not
just talk about disease in the most literal sense, as critical
as that is. But also about putting an end to the disease of poverty,
to the disease of war, to the disease of injustice.
Again, I want to thank all of you for committing your selves to
improving the health to the worlds children. I want to thank the
sponsors and the organizations some of which are listed here this
important event and I'm very proud of the role played by so many
British Columbians who have volunteered time and were up at 4:30
this morning to get organized. Particularly I want to pay tribute
to a very old friend of mine, was at my first visit to Guangzhou,
Dr. Wah Jun Tze who I believe should be nominated for the Nobel
prize for his magnificent work in this area. So I wish you all
the best at the Congress and I hope you enjoy our beautiful home.
Thank you.
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