Hello, welcome to the Judge Ben Show. My name is Ben Joseph. I'm a retired Vermont trial judge. About once a month I do an interview with someone about a legal issue that's pending in Vermont. This is somewhat unusual again because I usually meet in the, what is it, the town meeting TV? Channel 17? Usually meet in their studio, which you can't do now because of the virus. So this is the second interview that I've taped here in, well, eight in the camera man, just taped here. In Battery Park, and we're lucky again. We got a beautiful day. And my guest today is Sarah George, who is the, what's your official title? Chittenden County State's Attorney. Chittenden County State's Attorney. And how long have you been a prosecutor? Almost 10 years. Wow. January will be 10 years. Wow. And how long have you been the State's Attorney? Three years. How many people are in your office? Yeah, 36 people. Wow. 36 prosecutors? No, there's 15 prosecutors and the rest is advocates and staff. You stay at it? Yeah. And actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it'll be four years in January that I've been in this position. Times wise. Yeah, it really does.  Yeah. Well, I recently did an interview here with Karen Tronscott Scott, who's the Executive Director of the Network against domestic violence and sex assault. And as a follow-up to that, I'd ask you to come on so we can talk about what your office has to do with these matters. It's really been very sobering to read all about this. I've done some background reading and thought about some of my own experiences on the bench. And part-time, full-time, about 15 years on the bench. So that was some of these matters. So your office, do you have assistants who deal exclusively with these matters? We do. So the office always has a prosecutor who is specifically assigned to the Cousy docket. And what is Cousy? Cousy stands for the Chittenden Unit of Special Investigations. And so they're a special unit within Chittenden County that only deals with sexual violence. And they are made up of specially trained detectives from around the county. And we also have a special prosecutor who does our domestic violence docket. So they are two dockets? Right.  They do, obviously, occasionally overlap. Sometimes they must overlap. Well, roughly, and I know you probably can't put a precise number on it, but how many of these cases do you have in each category during the year, do you know? We get, so the FY19 numbers for Cousy were 350 cases that were sent to our office for either review or prosecution or both. The domestic violence docket is a little harder to track just based on there being multiple agencies sending them. They're harder to track, but I would guess that they're closer to a thousand cases. It's a lot of work. It is a lot of work, and it's especially a lot of work for those two prosecutors who, handling all of them, is really beneficial in a lot of ways. But it is also a really emotionally jarring docket, and it's just, they're complicated legal matters and they're hard cases to prove. There's rarely witnesses. They're tough. They're really tough. Well, my experience suggested to me that delays were particularly difficult in cases like this, because this often is pressure on the complainant. Yep, absolutely. You can change your story or stuff like that. Now, currently there's been a slowdown in the court system, is that right? Yes, that's definitely correct. And I heard, early this summer, I heard that they, they've been a ban on jury trials basically for a while. And they're early this summer, I heard that they were going to start jury trials against September 1st. Is that still true? No, they have delayed that now through the end of the year. By the end of the year, what do you mean you haven't been able to do a jury trial for a year? Close to it. I mean, the court's closed on March 15th, I believe, so... Was that when the jury trial stopped? Yeah, so close to a year. You know, in Chittenden County, we're actually very lucky. We don't have a lot of jury trials. So, and a lot of other counties have a lot, so I do think that we're in a little bit better shape than some others. But if we needed to have one right now, we would not be able to, so it is concerning. Well, does it mean in some cases that delays can get in the case of trial because the defendant wants to have a jury? Right. Just as a, you know, just as a judge, having had the opportunities to look at the Vermont Constitution, which guarantees access to the courts, I'm wondering here about these delays. In fact, there is no access to the courts. Right. Yeah, I mean, the Supreme Court did lay out some pretty helpful language in, like, the reasonableness of what we're doing and the public health safety sort of trumping, for lack of a better word, the Constitution. But I, you know, our office is very cognizant of that, especially the people who are incarcerated right now and unable to have a jury trial and are really working hard, especially on those cases, to make sure that we are really needing to keep them in jail or if we can come to some agreement or if the, on other cases, if the charges don't need to be pending, knowing that this other collateral consequence is so large for so many people right now. It is very difficult, yeah. Well, are some of these people, some of the, some of the people who are pending trial are incarcerated. Right. And that's a problem in itself. Yeah.  Right. Yeah, I mean, again, in Chittenden County, we don't have, we have a very small number of people out on bail. We don't, I don't personally agree with bail. So we don't have many, but, and we certainly don't have people being held for lack of ability to pay bail. But we do have a, you know, a small number of people being held without bail on pretty serious charges. And those, from my perspective, are really the cases we need to be, like, trying incredibly hard to do everything we can. Well, but if you can't have the jury, if the defendant clearly has the right to a jury trial, if you can't get the jury, you're stuck. Yep. I mean, literally, yeah. Well, the defendant is stuck. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, I don't know, I was briefly in the legislature, and I remember talking about how there should be more resources available so we can get these things done. I didn't make much of an impression, I'm afraid. I wish I had, because I think it's very important. Yeah. Very important. It absolutely is. Well, what effect has the, what effect, if any? I'll be careful with my questioning here. Leading. What effect, if any, has the COVID business had on your operation of your office? Massive.  And they, I think that the benefit, I really tried in the last four years to decrease the number of people coming into our system at all. Putting a lot more pressure on community partners to take care of issues that really aren't criminal court issues. How do you define that criminal court? People that are just possessing drugs, and so their, their issue is a, is a substance use issue. It's not something that charging them with a crime is going to accomplish, isn't going to cure them, isn't going to get them the treatment they need, or maybe it will, but it's forced. So, or mental health issues, people that are only committing low level misdemeanor crimes because of mental health issues when they just need a service provider. Just using restorative practices far more on cases that are between two parties and there's conflict, but there's not a lot the court can do to resolve that conflict. Trying to divert more cases through all of our diversion practices, or all of our diversion services. So I think that because we've been doing that, we were in a little bit better of a position coming into this that we knew how to do that. We knew how to let communities handle a lot of their cases, and so we've, we've continued to do that. But otherwise, I mean, going from an incredibly busy office with 35 people, you know, our county has over a third of the state's population in it. It's a big office for Vermont to being, you know, having two people there every day and making it work with a couple days notice was a learning experience for all of us. I will say the court has had a harder time adjusting than we have, but you do learn or you do really realize when you're having to do things virtually how much time was wasted prior. You know, how much we really could have been doing much more efficiently that we are now forced to do efficiently. And I frankly hope there's a lot of practices that I hope remain after COVID, calling in for status conferences and not making the offenders show up. It's like, I mean, you've seen it, how many people just sit in that courtroom for an hour at a time for a 30 second status conference. And now we're all calling in from our homes. We're doing other work while other cases are being called. Private attorneys are probably not billing as much as they used to be, but it's been great for us. The downfall is, you know, we can't do evidentiary hearings in the same way. But do you do them remotely? We have been doing some remotely. Mostly when we have a witness that we feel like really can call in or doesn't really need to be present, but it really depends on the defense attorneys as well, what they're willing to stipulate to. But we have been doing them. The depositions in person are incredibly difficult. The court won't let us use any of their space. So we're having to find other spaces and that is just sometimes. Why won't I let you use some of this space? They just refuse to let us use them. They really have not been super helpful through this, to be honest. But it's different. It's everybody and, you know, we have a lot of staff with children. So they're dealing with their own stuff at home with trying to teach their own kids and trying to figure out what their schooling is going to look like and daycare issues. And so we're trying to navigate that as an office. And then we just miss each other. You know, we're a close staff and we're very social. Well, I think, and you have to, you know, not being able to talk to a colleague about a problem is very important. It is very important. I think especially in work like this, to be able to talk some of this stuff out. We do have a program called Microsoft Teams that we use and we video chat a lot on that. But it's different than just walking into someone's office and being like, what's wrong about this issue and what should I do? Or even at the lunch table, you know, having those conversations, I really miss that. But we are adjusting and I think given the circumstances, everybody's doing pretty great. But I worry about the, you know, our system's already pretty dehumanizing and I really worry about that aspect when we've gone so virtual that these offenders are not right in front of us when we're asking for them to be held or these victims are not right in front of the defense attorney when they're questioning them. It separates us even more in a system that already does that too much. Well, I just think so much of communication is not verbal. Absolutely. You know, your questioning of witness, it's important to be in the same room and see how they're reacting and what they're, what affects them as they speak. Agreed. It's very strange. It is very strange.  Yep, yep. Referring people on cases involving substances, put them immediately in some kind of evaluation and treatment. Has that gone on? Yeah. It hasn't actually, it's gotten, it's gotten picked up statewide. So now it's in the attorney general's office, runs it. It's called Tamarack now, but yeah, absolutely. I like rapid referral better. I know. I tried to keep that name just in our county, but then it got really complicated and so I finally gave in. But yeah, I do too. And you know, I think especially because people have no idea what Tamarack means and it, it doesn't have the same impact as like saying that this is a rapid intervention. This is like, we're trying to do something quickly for this particular person, but it is and it's actually been a lifesaver for us. I mean, we finally got some really good staff in there and they're really dedicated to helping people and they, you know, give them, give them all the chances they, they really need until, you know, until they can anymore. But it's really very thankful for it. Well, thank you. But I just want to, I want, I want people to understand that when I first started this, there was a three year gap between a study as to what was going on and the first nine or 10 months of the experiment. In retrospect, they found that of the people, the first 172 people who I'd put into treatment, about 15% of them got arrested again within three years. Wow. And then the, there was a control group that the Vermont Crime Information Center picked up 300 people who were charged with drug related offenses, DUI, you know, possession of substances. And in that group, in the three years following their initial contact, they didn't get treatment. So their recidivism rate was 80%. Yup. It's just, it's, it's unbelievable to me how little we take advantage of resources like that because the data is, and research is so clear that the recidivism rates are massive when we don't address the underlying issue. We just try to punish the crime, punish the behavior without addressing the underlying issues. And that goes for substances, mental health, and trauma.   And so we, and then we wonder why they recidivate. Well, I mean, I don't, try not to make these too difficult for my guests. But what resources would you like to have available in order to deal with this? Well, one, I am a, I am an incredibly strong believer in restorative practices. I think that, like you were saying, communication, there are, there's so many cases, and I don't just mean low level offenses. I mean, like violent offenses where so many of the victims just want to talk to the person.  Talk to the perpetrators. Yeah. And find out, like, why they did this, and tell them how it impacted them. And our system doesn't allow for that. And, and frankly, even, you know, the best example I can give of that is the Stephen Bourgoin case. You know, I tried that case. I dealt with those families for three years. I'm gonna say dealt. I love them, like family now. And they ask me that all the time. Like, can we, can we just talk to him? I mean, we just want to, we just want to talk to him. Did they want to understand what happened? Yeah. And that wasn't an option. Our system doesn't want that to happen. I should explain for our viewers, the Bourgoin case is one in which the defendant is driving the wrong way on an interstate highway at a high rate of speed. And he crashed into some cars. He first crashed into one car that held five teenagers, who all died. And then he stole a cop car and crashed again, hitting several other cars and injuring a lot of people. Wow. And yeah, so I think one, I just think that we really need to humanize our system more and allow people within the process to, to communicate in a really honest way without it impacting the procedure. But I also think, you know, we need to do more within our communities to not call cops for everything and try to just resolve conflict and, and issues, substance use and mental health issues in our communities, let them handle it and really leave those other more complicated cases for the court. Because then we'd be able to actually handle them in a good way too.  You are. Per year? No, per like, at a time. At that moment? At a time. My God.  You're forced to. And that's a terrible thing to say about people's, like you're dealing with people's lives and you have to triage. And we wouldn't have to do that if less cases were coming to our office and communities were just able to deal with some of those issues themselves. But we've gotten so used to just, you have a, you have a conflict or an issue you call the cops and the cops are so used to coming to that conflict or issue and find, figuring out what the crime is and sending it to us. We really need to break that habit. And I think if those communities had more resources to deal with it themselves, we would all be off. Well, it's very difficult. There are times when I think it's important to get the case into court so the conditions can be set to protect the public.  Well, that's because I retire. Right, right. They don't protect the public. I mean, it's, you know, they might, if the person violates right now, especially we're, we're doing citations eight to 12 weeks out. The person isn't expected to come to court because of the public health issues. I mean, if there's citation for violation of conditions released, it's eight to 12 weeks out? Yeah. Some cases aren't even getting set for a next court date. So it might be even more than that if the court decides to do it as a next court date. So, and also like somebody could violate a condition multiple times through the case and it's just a new charge. You know, it's, it's, I do think it's important. I, you know, but I think it's important like an RFA is important. It's, it's a court order. RFA is a relief from the use of it. Yeah, sorry. No, no, no, it's okay. We all talk in acronyms.  And so again, just sort of addressing the underlying issue is far more important. Well, what would be the best way to see the thing that I always come back to is there's no best way to do things. Yeah. Because each case is unique to its facts. Yep, absolutely. And so some, some should go this way, some should go that way, but there can't be a general rule. Right. You know, there has to be a, it's, it's probably one of the most important functions of the judge is to see what the individual facts are and to try to tailor some solution to the facts of this case. Right. And you can't do it by category. You have to do it by case. Well, and I think that that's, that's a good point and it's an unfortunate truth in Vermont that our statute prohibits our restorative justice programs from dealing with domestic and sexual violence cases. And it's a, it's a blanket statement when in fact those cases have incredibly great outcomes. Why was that put in with the law? I think that the theory behind it, and Karen actually might know more about this than I do, but the theory behind it is that victims shouldn't, that that's, this is a power and control issue. And so putting them in a room or into a circle to have this conversation would be unfair to the survivor is that was, that's my assumption. But one, the research just does not support that, but also so many of those cases that we handle, that's all the survivor wants. And we as a government have said, no, we know you want that, but we're going to do this whole other punitive thing that doesn't get you any of that. The survivor wants to sort out the cause of this? Yeah, they want to just talk to them. And yes, especially in DD cases, I mean, you know, you've seen this, like we charge a case and within a day the victim wants contact again. They want to, they want to go to counseling with the person. They want to fix the relationship. And we say, no, you can't, we're like, we're stepping in, we're protecting you and we're protecting your family. And this isn't about you guys fixing this. This is about him fixing his issue. And it, in a lot of cases, it does a lot more harm to the family and the, and the survivor than, than good. So I think making these blanket rules about what cases, you know, we do a lot of nonviolent and violent for the same reason. It's like the story of practices work better on violent cases than they do nonviolent cases, but we've said, you know, well, those aren't really what this is for. This requires individual judgment. Absolutely. It requires a judge. Yeah. You know, one of the most important functions of the judicial role. Yeah. But it's, it's frustrating because I really think you need more resources. Obviously the judiciary needs more resources. You could probably use some to, you know, really. Maybe. I mean, I would really, I tell myself all the time that my function as a prosecutor is to put myself out of work. And I think that giving more of those resources to the community and giving them the power to really deal with those issues is where I would rather those resources be going. Well, I put them in hope, please. Yeah. Yeah. If you put them in the first one, you shouldn't need them in the second. You know, I think that, I mean, maybe, yeah, I'll take them, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't pass it up, but I do think that our, you know, our, our CJCs in Chittenden County are busy. Like, I keep them very busy. And I would love the community justice centers. Yeah. I would love to see them get more resources. What is the community justice center? Yeah. So they, they deal in, they are restorative practice organizations that take cases. I should tell you, I've been on the board. Oh, you have? Yeah. They take cases from their communities and do restorative circles with a person so they might have an offender if the survivor victim is interested. They will come to and they, they answer to the community. Really. They tell them what happened. They acknowledge the harm. They talk about the harm and then they try to figure out a way to restore that harm. And then it's the expectation that the offender does that. It goes out and does whatever they mutually agree will, will restore that harm, repair the harm. It's just a very difficult, difficult area of the law. You know, I've had cases where a kid was taken out of the home because of violence, put back in the home and killed. Yeah. You know, and that, that's just going to happen. It is going to happen. And I think we, Even with good judgment. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Yeah, no, absolutely. Even though it seems to be the right thing. Yeah. One of the things I think often gets lost is this domestic violence is so harmful to the child. You know, the child grows up with this and becomes violent to herself or himself later on in the way they saw the parents made. Yep. And taking the, like separating the child from the parents or taking a parent out of it is also harmful to the children. And, you know, I did the, when I first started as a prosecutor, I was the domestic violence prosecutor for about three and a half to four years. Wow. And one, yeah, it was too long to do that docket. But I remember the first time that even within that four years, I was prosecuting a father for domestic violence against a mom and then prosecuting the son for domestic violence against his dog, his girlfriend. And I knew that that generational violence was a thing, of course, but to see it within such a short amount of time was really, was really heartbreaking. And he was young, of course. I think he was 19 and was like, what do we do to try to fix this now before he spends the rest of his life in and out of jail? And it's like, it's really, and probably seeing his father abusive his entire life was a big part of that. Well, it's so traumatic for the children. And they live with it forever. Yep. And of course, if you separate them from the parents, that's also painful. Yep. I know I read a description of the case where the kid had been terribly abused. And so they were separating him. And he leaves the courtroom crying out for mommy. Yep. Who had been so abusive to her. Yep. It's really heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking stuff. Four years of that? Yeah. Yeah. Had a lot of dues. Yeah, it was, it was hard. It was really hard. How's the, the, the COVID business with the lockdowns, which have combined people to their homes. Yeah. Has it had an effect on the incidents of domestic violence? Yeah, it's a hard, you know, it's measuring a negative. So it's, I don't, the legitimate answer would be, I don't know. But. Well, I'll take a little legitimate answer. I'm not a particular. All right. My illegitimate and really unknown answer is yes, I think so. Because our numbers of domestic violence have not gone up. Our, our cases coming in have not gone up, which, you know, at first might be a good thing. But I do, you know, speaking with some of our local partners, I do think that their calls are up. And so I think that a part of it is not, not reporting. And I think especially in the beginning when there were we were on severe lockdown and it was cold and, you know, a lot of people knew that if they called the police that one of them was going to have to leave this home and they didn't have anywhere else to go. And I think that's a legitimate, you know, concern. And it would have happened. And we had cases that came in that we didn't do the typical no contact because of that, which is also scary as a prosecutor.  That's always a really volatile time. And when it comes to the sexual violence cases, those numbers are significantly lower. Those numbers are significantly lower right now compared to last year, which in part I think is due to the bars not being open. The colleges being closed down early and then, you know, only partially reopening. There's a lot less stranger to stranger contact in general happening. So that part I think is good, but the other side to that is what you're talking about. And like all of our mandated reporters aren't seeing kids right now. And so my fear is that children might be abused or assaulted at higher rates during COVID and nobody, there's no eyes on them. So we don't know about it. And frankly going into this year, I think school counselors, especially are probably going to have to be very, very cognizant about that one day a week there in school or two days a week they might be in school. However, their schedule is to really pay attention to that stuff because there are eyes. Just to be clear for the viewers, what's a mandated reporter? Yeah, so there's just some people whose profession mandates that if they believe abuse is occurring that they call the police. That's a law. It is a law. Yeah. And so school counselors are one of them. Teachers I think in general are one of them. So with schools being out and daycare providers are one, so without daycare. I mean if a kid shows up in school with a bruise in his face, that's a trigger. Right. You got to report that. Right. And so when you're not seeing those kids in person. Yeah. That's something that I do think is being under reported, unfortunately. Well, I just think it's so important to try to address this in earnest because it just goes generation after generation after generation. You've got to try to address it. Yeah. I hope these people. I think, you know, one of the things that I thought when I was doing that business of putting people in treatment was they made a contact with a counselor. Yep. And I remember one of these people coming in saying, you know, Ben, she never came back. And I said, that's really sad. He said, no, we'll always remember within the year, I'll hear from her again. You know, once they've made that contact with a counselor who really cares about them and is not trying to lock them up. Yeah. They got somebody to talk to. Yeah. And, you know, not to get off topic, but I do think one of my biggest fears during COVID is our, is our suicide rates and our overdose fatalities. But our, our suicide rates are up. And I think and a handful of them at least have been people with really no prior mental health history. And telehealth has done really incredible things for people who are already engaged with a counselor, but for the people who found themselves meeting that support during COVID for the first time, you know, I've been to count, I've been to several therapists and counselors over the years and finding the right one is incredibly important. And so having that first, you know, session or, or meeting on FaceTime or Zoom is really hard to have that connection. And then if you're trying to talk about a personal thing and you're in your home and, you know, you're not in like a safe space, it's, it really complicates it. And I think that that is another issue that we've dealt with a lot during COVID is just trying to find people's services that will work for them when they haven't been involved in them before. It's a very important function, but do you have, do you have the personnel to do that? Yeah, I mean, our, we have really incredible pre-trial service monitors right now that that's their job. So we do an order at the, at the Raymond and that's all they do is connect people to services. How many of those do you have? We have three. That's great. Yeah. And, and they're great. Is that news that happened in Europe? So the actual pre-trial service program has been in place for maybe five, six, seven years somewhere in there. But for the first, probably four years, we, like in Chittenden County, we really didn't have great ones and they need to be great. They really need to like, they really need to know our system. They need to understand trauma. They need to understand or they need to know like partners in the community. And we've really struggled to find the right ones. But since we have, there are a lot of people that will engage in services while the case is pending and by the time we want to resolve, they've done everything that we could have asked of them. It's been a, it's been a lifesaver for us to have and for the people obviously that they're helping to get them connected. And then, and for so many people, it's just, they don't know how to take that first step. They don't even know who to call to get a particular thing. Or people just give them a phone number over and over again and it might seem like such a small thing for those of us that have our life together. But for people that are really struggling with these issues, making that phone call can be completely debilitating.  So that's an interesting expression. Oh. Warm handoff. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I, I stand by that in general. People coming out of jail, I think need very warm handoffs because we often just release them. Well, that, that, that I, you know, amen. Yeah. I just think that personal contact is very important. It is. Just to be supportive. Yeah. Because people can get despondent and self-destructive. Yeah. You talk about increasing suicide rates. Yeah, absolutely. Or they go back to using a substance or, and then we're in the same situation we were in before. Yeah.  I, I, I've studied that case a lot. And that guy's Marijuana was extraordinary. Yeah. Absolutely. Six times the THC content that defines liberation in Colorado. And this guy was just unbelievably under the influence. And I just, I just think if someone could have gotten into, into that problem, ahead of time, I would be able to save lives. Terrible thing. Terrible thing. Yeah. Terrible thing. Well, is there anything else you wanted to cover during our... No, I feel like we got through a lot. Well, we're, you know, I'm a judge on the bench. Yeah, I know. Exactly. But we're comfortable here. I like it. You appear in front of the judge, you do a good job. Yeah. Well, look, I want to thank you very much for what you're doing. Thank you. I know it's hard. I know it's difficult. It is. I was once a different world, but it's a tough job. It is. Oh, yeah, look at that. That's great. Thank you.


Nobody teaches the Industrial Revolution as this amazing period in which humanity suddenly discovers the ability to produce and create and change its environment so that humanity can grow to be 8 billion people without starvation and without destruction and live successfully. Nobody teaches that, right? You learn the battles. Napoleon did that. But Napoleon, in the big scheme of things, not that important. The guy who invented the steam engine, much more important. The first, you know, John J. D. Rockefeller, who figures out how to make oil into something we could use and makes the process more and more and more efficient, a thousand times more important than any politician who lived in the 19th century. You're never going to, nobody's going to teach you that. The scientists are important. Businessmen are important.


This morning, this is one game I have to be mic'd up for, so... Let's get something rolling here. He's going to be a touchdown. He's going to be a touchdown. Coming back, and the ball got fumbled. Najoku fumbled the football, and Atlanta's recovered it with Rashawn Evans. Here's CP, Corderole around the left edge at the five-stiff arm, pushed out of bounds at the one. No touchdown! They award the touchdown for Patterson. What a play on that play extension, though. Good job, man. Great job!  Good job, man. Great job on that f***ing play extension, man. Look at the clock. No, I know. I'm yelling at the defense. It's not you. I'm yelling at the f***ing defense.  I'm telling those guys to work their arms in. If your guys keep playing, and keep moving through that, they're going to hold on. That's a lay. Good job, Daniel. Good job. Hey, time out! Time out! Time out! Time out! Time out! Time out!  They're just clamping on the edges. Richie, just set them down and play discipline. Discipline. Shot! Shot! You got a bad one? You all right? You good? Guys, here's what we're doing. We're going to run the f*** out of this football. Hey! Hey! Just trust me. We're getting ready to run the f*** out of football. Time to get something going. I got you. I got you. I got you. We're getting ready to run the ball. Yes, sir.   We're getting ready to run this f***ing ball, okay, Dean? Hey, guys, we're going to win this f***ing game. All right, guys, we got life, dude. Pump them up, Rags. Pump the guys up. Here's Huntley. Left side. Touchdown Atlanta. This drive belongs to the Duke. Set the tone, Hesse. Good drive, Tyler. Good drive, man.  Happy football. Did you get the ball? The f***ing ball? It's the best thing you ever said, Kale. Guys, just get Dave or either and kneel down. Victory. Brissette dropping again, throwing. And it is intercepted. D'Alford. Holy smokes. Falcons are going to win for the second straight time and go to two and two.


It's really an honor and a pleasure to be able to share these ideas with you. The secret of economic growth is the question that Adam Smith started economics with, you know, what's the origin of the wealth of nations, why are some countries rich, other countries poor. The only thing is that when he wrote the wealth of nations, the richest country in the world, which was probably the Netherlands at the time, was about four times richer than the poorest country in the world. Today, the poorest country in the world is probably Malawi. So if I multiply by four, the income per capita of Malawi, to get to the same distance between the Netherlands and the poorest, I get now barely to Haiti. If I multiply by four, Haiti's income might get to Morocco. If I multiply by four, Morocco's income, I get to Poland. And if I multiply by four, Poland's income, I get to Canada. So today, the richest countries in the world are about 250 times richer than the poorest countries in the world. You might say, well, what's this problem of difference of incomes between countries? It's not only between countries. Within a same country with the same exchange rates, same interest rates, same tax regime, same etc., etc., you have differences in productivity per worker of about a factor of 10. That's a truly puzzling result. Now, what we know about where we got here is that growth is a very recent phenomenon. We had incomes per capita since the year zero. Essentially, there was no movement until this very last period. And in this very last period, there's been this explosion. I'm expanding the last 200 years. But this explosion of incomes happened in a very differential way. It happened a lot in some parts and not in other parts. So the difference that there was a factor of four now has become the differences that I mentioned before. And it underpins these humongous differences in productivity per worker. What's behind that? And economists have had theories about what that might be. And those theories typically involve the availability of assets, factors of productions like land, labor, capital, human capital. The accumulation of these things is not the secret of growth. The real puzzle is in productivity. Because say the US is 30 times richer than it was 200 years ago. But it's not because it's producing 30 times more of the stuff that it was producing 200 years ago. It's producing different kinds of goods that did not exist with different kinds of techniques that did not exist. So the process of growth has meant changing what you make and changing how you make it. It is not having more stuff to make the same way but the change in the things you make. So it's the increase in productivity that underpins this growth process. In fact, the increase in productivity is the thing that wants you to say accumulate more capital and so on. Technology, people think of it as essentially being either tools or blueprints. You generate either new machines, new equipment, new tools or new recipes, new ways of doing things. If you think about it as technology as the explanation for these humongous differences in productivity, you have to ask yourself the question, why doesn't technology diffuse? You can put a machine in a container and ship it around the world. It doesn't take that long to ship something around the world. And you can put a blueprint on the web and have it instantaneously anywhere that has an internet access. The problem is that in order to implement technology, there's a crucial ingredient. And that crucial ingredient is that at some stage in the production, you need know-how. You need the ability of the brain to do things. To answer a serve, this is not something that you're going to learn if I tell you how to do it. It's something that the brain must be trained to do it. And that process of training how to do things takes a long time. And the diffusion of that is complicated. The problem in the world today is not just how to do things on your own, but how to do things in teams when people have to know how to do different complementary things. My hypothesis is going to be that what slows down the process of development is the process of diffusion of this collective know-how. In order to get our minds around know-how, I'm going to make a stylized comparison. And my stylized comparison is I'm going to compare an inuit, a traditional inuit, and here's the inuit engaged in food production, and here's the inuit engaged in housing construction, and here's the inuit engaged in transportation. Who has more know-how? And that ends up being a somewhat complicated question because this guy uses glasses, doesn't have a clue as to how to make glasses. He has a headset, a computer, doesn't know how to make those things either. If I put this guy in the Arctic, he will either freeze to death or starve to death. So there's no practical way in which you can say that this guy has more know-how than the other guys. But it is possible to say that the society to which this guy belongs knows how to do more things than the society to which inuits belong. Not because this society is a bunch of geniuses, but because in this society there are some people who know how to make glasses, they'll know how to make headsets, or who know how to make other things. It's the diffusion of that know-how in society. It's the division of know-how that underpins the capacity to do more things and more complicated things. This is the 787. It's supposedly done by Boeing. Boeing has 165,000 workers. With that, they make less than 15% of the parts that go into making the airplane. So in fact, the parts have to come from all over the place because you have to source the know-how of making these things in the whole very long network, meaning that the know-how necessary to make just one plane involves many, many, many people. This doesn't mean that the secret of progress is to have large companies. This is a very big company, but in this company, it's not a very complex company. They're making chicken parts because you can realize that if you move workers around, not much will happen to the production process, but you cannot do that here. Here, each worker is contributing a different bit of know-how to the whole, and you need the whole set of instruments to make the symphony. So it's not what the guy in the tractor knows. It's the network of know-how to the which he's connected. And obviously, he can pay for the tractor, he can pay for the seeds, he can pay for everything and make more money than the guy on the left. If the guy on the left, for example, cannot sell his product, he cannot buy all these other inputs. So it's being connected to that network of all these other inputs that allows this guy to mobilize all that know-how and to then generate that productivity. This I'm going to re-describe as the game of Scrabble. In the game of Scrabble, you have to make words, you're given letters. So think of words as products, goods or services. And think of letters as bits of know-how. In order to make something, you have to string the bits of know-how together in the same way as you need the different instruments to make the symphony. If you only have one kind of letter, you're most going to make one kind of word. Say the letter A. But if I give you three kinds of letters, now you can make these four kinds of words and you can make three letter words. And if I give you four letters, now you can make nine words and you can make four letter words. And if I give you ten letters, now you can make 599 words. What's happening in this process is as you get more letters, you get an increasing number of words, a better diversification of what you do and longer words, more complex products. So the process of development, you can re-describe it as this process of accumulating letters and expressing them in more words and in longer words in more diverse products and in more complex products. And this we can observe the telltales of this process by looking at how many products countries are able to make and how hard it is to make those products. So for example here, the most diverse country in the world is Germany and there are very few other countries that are able to do the things that Germany is able to do. While the poorest countries in the world make few things and they make things that everybody knows how to make. They make shorter words. So the more letters you have, you make more words and you make words that are harder to make. So with these tools, we developed an index of trying to attempt to measure how many letters a country has, how much productive capabilities a country has and this is our picture of the world in terms of economic complexity. The U.S. is very complex as is Western Europe, Japan, a little bit less China, China more complex than India and even within Africa you see Tunisia is complex and Egypt at the top, South Africa at the bottom and so on. What does it know how to make? And you may ask yourself the question, does this relate to how rich countries are? And it does. It does a pretty good relationship between how many letters you have here and how rich you are. And you might say, well, this is a pretty good relationship but it's not perfect. Does that indicate a certain defect of the theory to which I might answer, well, maybe it reflects a certain defect of the world? Here is India. The theory would say, tell me, how is India so poor given how much it knows how to make? Well, maybe that's the reason why India is growing so fast because it already has what it takes to be richer. So the idea is that this metric of how much you know may drive where your country is going to, how rich you're going to be. We now understand that the secret of growth is to get more letters and to express them in more words and in longer words. The problem is, how do you do that? Because if you wanted to make, say, we're here in Switzerland, if you want to make watches, you need watchmakers. But if the country never made watches before, there are no watchmakers. And if there is no watchmaking industry, why would you want to become a watchmaker? And even if you wanted to become a watchmaker, who are you going to learn watchmaking from if watches are not being made? So the difficult question is, how do you coordinate the appearance of the letters with the demand for the letters in an industry that needs them? How do you coordinate the need for a capability with a supply of that capability? And the question is, how does the world solve this problem? And the world tends to solve this problem by moving from words that use certain letters to other words that use maybe very similar letters, adding maybe a letter or two, so that this chicken and egg problem that we need to address is easier to solve. But then the question is, what do you mean by nearby? What does it mean for a product to be near, cognitively speaking, some other product? Well, to get a sense of that, we need to think sort of like spatially. So think of this metaphor where every product is like a tree in a forest. Trees are at a certain distance from each other, depending on how similar are the letters that they use. So if they use very similar letters, they'll be nearby in the forest, otherwise they'll be far away in the forest. We were able to map this forest in this idea we call the product space. And the product space is if you want to map of the forest, every product is like a circle. Here they're sized according to world trade. And they are connected to other products that use sort of like similar cognitive skills, similar capabilities. And you see very quickly there are some dense parts of the forest. This is machinery, this is construction materials, that's garments and textiles, that's chemicals, that's electronics. We didn't put them there, they put themselves there. Very interestingly that they're very dense parts of the forest, but they're very sparse parts of the forest. For example, the big blob, black blob up there, is oil. It's big but it's disconnected. While machinery is very much connected to other things. If you know how to make one kind of machine, it's easy to figure out how to make other kinds of machines. So products are going to differ in two dimensions. In how long are the words, how many letters do they use, and in how connected are those products, is how much you could use the words, the letters that are used for one word, if you were to make other words. How close is that tree from other trees in the forest? So with this, we are now going to re-describe the world. To re-describe the world, we have to imagine what is a country in this description of the world. And a country is going to be a collection of monkeys that live in some of the trees. Monkeys are like firms, firms make products, products are trees, so the monkey is living on a tree, exploiting a tree. So we can now describe a country as to where it has its monkeys. So for example here, I'm contrasting the monkeys in Venezuela with the monkeys in Mexico. And you see that there's much more know-how in Mexico than in Venezuela. They know how to make many more things. They make printers, TVs, cars, and so on and so forth. While here we have the big blob at the top, oil, and little else. Countries differ in how much they know how to make. And in where in the product space are those things? How many other trees are they near from? How many other things would be easy for them to move into? Now, we're going to see how is it that monkeys populate the forest? How is it that monkeys move in this space? And in order for us to understand how monkeys move in this space, I'm going to tell you the story of Korea. So this is Korea in 19... That's Korea in 1962. We're going to be zooming into this place where Korea suddenly developed batteries. From then it went to develop these other products. From then it went to develop those other products. And from then it went to develop CPUs and computers. So the monkeys were populating the forest by jumping from where they were to other products that used more or less those words but added some. And that is how Korea ended up populating this place. This is two countries, Ghana and Thailand. They started in 1962 with very similar levels of income. In the intervening period, Ghana invested more than Thailand in education. So they accumulated more years of schooling than Thailand. They had the advantage that the education in Ghana was in English, which is the lingua franca of the world, so it makes things easier. So let's look at what these countries knew how to do in 1962. Well, you see the colors are fairly similar. There they were doing cocoa. Here they were doing rice and rubber, but essentially very similar productive patterns. Let's look at what happened in the intervening period. Ghana diversified a little bit. See more or less similar colors. They added gold. And Thailand completely transformed what they did. Thailand suddenly, the old stuff is this thing here and there, but they suddenly are making electronics, cars, trucks, chemicals, a bunch of other stuff that was not there before. Incomes in the two countries diverged so that now Thailand is four and a half times richer than Ghana. Countries are facing different predicaments and obviously that leads to different emphasis of strategy if they wanted to do something about it. Now we can use the position of the country in the product space and how easy it is for them to get more letters to predict growth. And this is our estimate of growth for the world in the next decade using this framework. And as you see, we're very constructive on India and Pakistan, a little bit less growth in China, very positive about Southeast Asia. So this leads us to a bunch of interesting and important policy questions. You have heard repeated many times that countries should specialize in their areas of comparative advantage. That's probably one of the most dangerous statements that has been ever said. Okay? In the process of growth, countries don't specialize. Countries diversify. They add more things, they become good at more things. If you would have thought that since France is good at grapes and France is good at, hence wine and France is good at cheese, wine and cheese, that's what France should do. If you look at what France does, it's hard to find wine and cheese in their export basket. They're making airplanes, they're making cars, they're making chemicals, they're making a ton of other stuff. They are still very good at making wine and cheese, but they evolved being good at many other things. Germany is the most diverse country in the world. They have not specialized, they have diversified. The process of diversification is more about adding capabilities to your capabilities than it is about adding value to your raw materials. Let's go back to this question. Why do we observe these differences in productivity? It's again because it's not the letter that this guy has, it's the capacity of the guy to combine his letter with other letters to make longer words. So this goes to the question of inclusive growth. What makes growth not inclusive? It's the inability of people to combine their letters with other letters to make more complicated products or to make things more productive. Now, this guy here is connected to the logistics network, to the supplying network, to a knowledge network, to a bunch of networks that allows him to the financial network, that allows him to buy the stuff and credit, get it delivered to his place, use it, etc., if something breaks down to have the services, etc. He is connected to a whole set of things that allows his effort to be productive. So the challenge of development is to get more letters, to be able to do more words and longer words, to have the monkeys populate the forest. But in order for the monkeys to populate the forest to jump from tree to tree, we want to give the monkey some instruments, some elements, so that he can orient himself in the forest. And that is why we have developed this tool, the Atlas of Economic Complexity. And this tool makes it a free tool. It's open to anybody. You can log in and Google. We're building this thing. This is just the beginning of the process. We want to develop more tools, more instruments for the monkeys to be able to make better decisions and to move around in this space. I think it's an exciting way of promoting inclusive growth in the world. Thank you very much.


Order please. Mr. President, we welcome you to this chamber where the Canadian people are represented by members of Parliament and Senators who comprise the Parliament of Canada. We are honoured with your presence. The Prime Minister to introduce our distinguished guest. Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Commons, Honourable Senators, Members of the House of Commons, Distinguished Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ladies and Gentlemen. It's a great honour to speak to you today. As you know, this is my third official visit to Canada. My last two were the first foreign trips I'd taken after each election. But our constitutional prohibitions being what they are, I thought it wasn't wise to wait for another election before visiting you again. I also wanted to time this trip after March so people wouldn't think that these state visits were just an excuse for Prime Minister Mulroney and me to celebrate St. Patrick's Day together. On each of these occasions, I have been struck by how much our two nations have in common. Despite our many important differences, you see the similarities of our national characters in, among other things, the sports we share. Hockey, baseball, football, with some modifications, and that fourth sport, which seems to be as popular on both sides of the 49th parallel, giving a hard time to political leaders of Irish descent. It's truly an honour to have a second opportunity to address this august body, this great democratic legislature that has been witnessed to and to shaper of so much of the history of freedom. I remember those days, not so very long after the attack on Pearl Harbor had once again united our two nations in a world conflict, when Winston Churchill stood where I am standing today. Wake Island had fallen just a week before. On Christmas Day, after an heroic defence by Canadian troops, Hong Kong was captured by the Axis. Manila was soon to be swallowed up as well, but those who might have been expecting a picture of democracy and retreat got something very different from that indomitable spirit. We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, he said, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we're made of sugar candy. Churchill was speaking of the members of the British Commonwealth, most specifically of the people of Canada, but I confess we Americans have always felt flattered ourselves that though the thought was unspoken, he had us in mind too. As too proud and independent peoples, there is much that distinguishes us, one from the other, but there is also much that we share, a vast continent with its common hardships and uncommon beauties, generations of mutual respect and support, and an abiding friendship that grows ever stronger. We are two nations, each built by immigrant refugees from tyranny and what, pioneers of a new land of liberty. The first settlers of this new world alone before the majesty of nature, alone before God, must have been thrown back on first principles, must have realized that it was only in their most basic values that they would find the wisdom to endure and the strength to triumph. And so a dedication was formed, as hard as the Granite of the Rockies, a dedication of freedom, a commitment to those unalienable human rights and their only possible guarantee, the institutions of democratic government. A shared history, yes, but more than that, a shared purpose. It must have seemed to Churchill, as sieged and isolated as he was, in the one corner of Europe still clinging to freedom, that this American continent and his two great friends and one-time colonies had been placed here by a wise and prescient God, protected between two vast oceans to keep freedom safe. In the crisis of the moment, Churchill said it was not then time to speak of the hopes of the future or the broader world which lies beyond our struggles and our victory. We must first, he said, win that world for our children, in a very real sense, that is still our imperative today, to win the world for our children, to win it for freedom. Today, our task is not merely the survival of liberty, but to keep the peace while we extend liberty to a world desperately in need. Today, we still contend against war, against a foreign expansionism, and I will speak to that in a moment, but I first wish first to talk about a second struggle, one that must occupy an equal place in our attentions, the struggle against the plagues of poverty and underdevelopment that still ravaged so much of mankind. Our two nations have committed many resources to that struggle, but we have it within our power at this moment to take an historic step toward a growing world economy and an expanding cycle of prosperity that reaches beyond the industrialized powers, even to the developing nations. We can lead first by our powerful example, specifically by the example of Prime Minister Mulroney's far-sighted proposal to establish a free trade agreement that would eliminate most remaining trade barriers between Canada and the United States. After the Allied victory over the Axis powers, America and Canada combined their efforts to help restore Europe to economic health. Those were golden years of international economic cooperation that saw the creation of GATT, which knocked down the tariff barriers that had so damaged the world economy. The International Monetary Fund, and 30 years ago last month, the creation of the common market. The theme that ran through it all was free and fair trade. Free and fair trade was the lifeblood of a reinvigorated Europe, a revitalized free world that saw a generation of growth unparalleled in history. We must keep these principles fixed in our minds as we move forward on Prime Minister Mulroney's free trade proposal, a proposal that I'm convinced will prove no less historic. Already, our two nations generate the world's largest volume of trade. The United States trades more with the province of Ontario alone than with Japan. United States citizens are by far the principal foreign investors in Canada, and Canadians on a per capita basis are even greater investors in our country. This two-way traffic in trade and investment has helped to create new jobs by the millions, expand opportunity for both our peoples, and augment the prosperity of both our nations. Prime Minister Mulroney's proposal would establish the largest free trade area in the world, benefiting not only our two countries, but setting an example of cooperation to all nations that now wrestle against the siren temptation of protectionism. To those who would hunker down behind barriers to fight a destructive and self-defeating round of trade battles, Canada and the United States will show the positive way. Overcome the impulse of economic isolationism with a brotherly embrace, and embrace it is not too much to hope that may someday extend throughout the Americas and ultimately encompass all free nations. We can look forward to the day when the free flow of trade from the southern reaches of Tierra Del Fuego to the northern outposts of the Arctic Circle unites the people of the western hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been, a meeting place rather than a dividing line. We recognize that the issues facing us are many and difficult, and just as this proud parliament is watching our negotiations, so too is the United States Congress, a comprehensive balanced agreement that provides open trade and investment on a comprehensive basis, an agreement in which both sides are winners. That is our goal. Augmenting the spirit of the Uruguay trade negotiations prelude to our economic summit in Venice this June, our free trade discussions here will be a model of cooperation to the world. Mr. Prime Minister, this will be a pioneering agreement worthy of a pioneering people, a visionary strategy worthy of the elected head of one of the world's greatest democracies. Mr. Prime Minister, we salute you and I pledge to you now that for our part we shall commit ourselves and the resources of our administration to good faith negotiations that will make this visionary proposal a reality. And on this, the Canadian people and the members of parliament have my word. Freedom works. The democratic freedoms that secure the God-given rights of man and the economic freedoms that open the door to prosperity, they are the hope and we trust the destiny of mankind. If free trade is the lifeblood, free enterprise is the heart of prosperity. Jobs, rising incomes, opportunity, they must be created day to day through the enterprise of free men and women. We've had to learn and relearn this lesson in this century. In my own country, we have witnessed an expansion and strengthening of many of our civil liberties, but too often we have seen our economic liberties neglected, even abused. We have protected the freedom of expression of the author as we should, but what of the freedom of expression of the entrepreneur whose pen and paper are capital and whose profits and whose literature is the heroic epic of free enterprise, a tale of creativity and invention that not only delights the mind but has improved the condition of man, feeding the poor with new grains, bringing hope to the ailing with new cures, vanquishing ignorance with wondrous new information technologies. In the United States, we have found a new consensus among members of both parties, in a reformed tax structure that lowers tax rates and frees the spirit of enterprise of our people. Today, that consensus is broadening as your great free nation seeks, free market nation, seeks to back the first principles of economic growth through rate-reducing tax reform. We see movements in Germany and Japan as well to cut tax rates, but this must be only the beginning for what is simply beneficial to us is a matter of the most dire necessity to the nations and peoples of the developing world, and this is the second great example that together we offer to the nations of the world in desperate economic need. For the poorer, the more desperate their condition, the more urgently they need the growth that only economic freedom can bring. We have seen time and again the healing invigorating effects of economic freedom. Tax rate cuts lifted both Germany and Japan out of post-war stagnation and into the forefront of the world economy. Low tax rates catapulted the nations of the Pacific Basin out of the third world, making them major economic partners today. A recent study prepared for our government found a direct relationship between the high tax rates and other statused policies of many underdeveloped countries and a cycle of deepening poverty and despair. On the other hand, the study found that countries with low tax rates and free market policies are among the fastest growing in the world, providing improved living standards and increased opportunity for all their people. We apply the principles of economic freedom at home. We should not export central planning and statist economics abroad. When the Holy Father came to this country, he spoke of the moral obligation of the wealthier nations to share with those less fortunate. Well, it's time to take up that challenge. Both our countries have been generous donors of foreign aid, and that's important. But our own experience, the experience of this century, has shown that the only effective way to share prosperity is to share the conditions that generate prosperity. History has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that statism spreads poverty. It is only freedom that begets wealth and free markets and low tax rates, free trade. This is the most valuable foreign aid we can give to the developing nations of the third world. These are the weapons of peace we must deploy in the struggle to win a future of liberty for mankind. So many have come to Canada and the United States in hope. Let us now give that hope to the world. Throughout our history, our two nations have keenly felt our international responsibilities, instrumental in founding and maintaining the NATO alliance. Through cooperative efforts in NORAD, Canada has taken a leading role in the defense of the free world. And meanwhile, we have cooperated in extending every effort to lessen the dangers of a nuclear-armed world. Over the past six years, the United States, working closely with Canada and our other allies, has sought to achieve deep reductions in Soviet and American nuclear arms. And thanks to the firmness shown by the alliance, we are moving toward a breakthrough agreement that would dramatically reduce an entire class of weapons, American and Soviet longer-range intermediate-range missiles, INF missiles in Europe and Asia. We have traveled far to get here, from past treaties that only codified the nuclear buildup to the point where we may soon see the dismantling of thousands of these agents of annihilation. We are hopeful, we are expected, that we face many difficulties still. As our negotiators continue to work toward a sound agreement, we are not going to abandon our basic principles or our allies' interests for the sake of a quick fix and inadequate accord. We will work for truly verifiable reductions that strengthen the security of our friends and allies in both Europe and Asia, and that cannot be circumvented by any imbalance in shorter range INF systems. In short, America will stand where she has always stood, with her allies in defense of freedom and the cause of peace. We must continue to keep in mind as well that a major impetus in our reduction talks has been the growing reality of our strategic defense initiative. SDI supports and advances the objectives of arms control, offering a more stable and secure environment as we pursue our goal of deep reductions in nuclear weapons. We must move away from a situation of mutual assured destruction, so aptly called the mad policy. We need defensive systems that threaten no one that would save human lives instead of targeting them. We must remember that the Soviet Union has spent 15 times as much on strategic defenses as we have over the last 10 years, while their record of compliance with existing arms treaties continues to be a cause for concern. Most people do not understand that mutual assured destruction has left our populations absolutely defenseless. This is an intolerable situation. The truly moral course is to move forward quickly with a new strategy of peace based not on the ability to threaten lives, but on our own confidence that we can save them.  As we have pursued better relations with the Soviet Union, we have labored to deal realistically with the basic issues that divide that nation from the free world. Our insistence that the Soviet Union adhere to its Helsinki Human Rights Agreement is not just a moral imperative. We know that no nation can truly be at peace with its neighbors if it is not at peace with its own people. In recent months, we have heard hopeful talk of change in Moscow, of a new openness. Some political prisoners have been released. The BBC is no longer jammed. We welcome these positive signs and hope that they are only the first steps toward a true liberalization of Soviet society, to the extent that the Soviet Union truly opens its society, its economy, and the life of its people will improve to that extent. We may hope its aggression will diminish. Disappointingly, however, there so far has been little movement on the Soviet side toward the peaceful settlement of regional conflicts that today are flaring across the globe. Despite announcements of ceasefires and talk of national reconciliation, the Soviets' terrible war against Afghanistan remains unabated, and Soviet attacks on neighboring Pakistan have escalated dangerously. In Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Angola, the Soviet Union continues to support brutal wars of communist governments against their own people. In Nicaragua, we see such a campaign on our own shores, threatening destabilization throughout Central America. This is not just a question of self-protection. The higher principle is that the people of Nicaragua have the right to decide their own future. The surest sign that the Soviet Union truly wants better relations, that it truly wants peace, would be to end its global strategy to impose one-party dictatorships, allow the people of this world to determine their own futures in liberty and in peace. We have known that when people are given the opportunity to choose, they choose freedom. Truly, the future belongs to the free. In our own hemisphere, we have seen a freedom tide sweep over South and Central America. Six years ago, only 30 percent of the people of Latin America lived in democracies. Today, over 90 percent do. Around the world, resistance movements are rising up to throw off the totalitarian yoke. Even in China, they debate the pace of reform, but acknowledge its necessity. On the border between Canada and the United States stands a plaque commemorating over a century and a half of friendship. It calls the border a lesson of peace to all nations, and that's what it is, a concrete living lesson that the path to peace is freedom, that the relations of free peoples, no matter how different, no matter how distinct their national characters, those relations will be marked by admiration, not hostility. Go stand along the border at the beginning of July. You'll see the maple leaf and the stars and stripes mixed in a swirling cloud of visitors and celebrants. As a Canadian writer, once put it, what's the difference between Dominion Day and July 4th? About 48 hours. Yes, we have differences, disputes, as any two sovereign nations will, but we're always able to work them out, entre amis. One area of particular concern to all Canadians I know is the problem of acid rain. When the Prime Minister and I met in Quebec two years ago, we appointed two distinguished envoys, Bill Davis and Drew Lewis, to examine the problem. They issued a joint report, which we have endorsed and were actively implementing many of their recommendations. The first phase of our clean coal technology program is underway, the beginning of a $6 billion commitment through 1992, and I have asked Congress for the full share of government spending recommended by the envoys, $2.5 billion for the demonstration of innovative pollution control technologies over the next five years. Literally thousands of firms and millions of jobs will be affected by whatever steps we take on this problem. So there are no quick and easy answers, but working together, we have made an important start, and I am convinced that is in the past our disputes will bring us closer as we find a mutual accord, our differences will become only another occasion for cooperation. Let me assure you that your concerns are my concerns.  I wanted to stretch, he said. I needed a place where I could move mountains or carry larger stones than Sisyphus, and here was the place for it. Nobody telling me what I am supposed to believe as a Canadian gave me a kind of freedom from my mind and my spirit and my creative energies that I had never experienced before in life, and I found that for me anyhow, anything could be possible here. This is your Canada and our continent.  Let me add a word if I can about our discussions today on two issues of critical interest to our two countries. The Prime Minister and I agreed to consider the Prime Minister's proposal for a bilateral accord on acid rain building on the tradition of agreements to control pollution of our shared international waters. The Prime Minister and I also had a full discussion of the Arctic waters issue, and he and I agreed to inject new impetus to the discussions already underway. We are determined to find a solution based on mutual respect for sovereignty and our common security and other interests. Thank you all very much and God bless you all. The Honourable Speaker of the Senate.