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Im glad to be here. As Ed said, Newfoundland is the place where the Vikings --and maybe the Irish first reached the New World. Well, comes now an OConnor, to assure you that the Irish, led by St. Brendan the Navigator, did in fact come here. This intrepid little band of brave people did set sail from the west coast of Ireland and reached Newfoundland.

And that was quite an achievement considering that their intended destination was France.

Talk of heading in the wrong direction leads directly into a discussion of, one, where the late great transmission breakdown occurred. We were told in the U.S. that it surely happened in Canada. Well, hell Ohio is closer than France. And, Two, the North American economy and the government policies affecting the well-being of our members, and those numbers are alarming:

I know all of you are painfully aware of Canadas 7.7 percent unemployment rate and not finding much consolation that June was down one-tenth of one percent from May. When unemployment in the United States reached above 6 percent, it marked the highest the U.S. jobless rate has been since 1994, and the U.S. has lost 2.3 million jobs in the last three years.

The bleak picture has had its impact on the First District, where our own numbers are reflecting the downward trend in the economy. Over the past five years, you folks in the First District increased your "A" membership by 4,250, a good performance. But in that same five-year period, the districts overall membership dropped by 3.6 percent. Thats because, during that same period, the First District suffered the loss of 6,344 "BA" members.

And, now that construction is in a slump throughout the union, our "A" membership is breaking even or declining in many districts. Union-wide, our overall membership was down 3.43 percent in 2002. The sharp downturn in the number of jobs available in the U.S. and Canada over the past two years has eaten away at our hard-won gains of the recent past. Our net membership growth over the past five years has been a mere three-tenths of one percent.

We need to stop the losses and grow again. To do that, we need, among other things, the help of fundamental changes in national economic policies.

I presume that the majority of North Americans would say that rebuilding Iraq will be a good thing, if we ever get around to it. But we wish our governments had a little more understanding and showed a lot more leadership in the economic rebuilding back here on this continent, as well. At present, we are not getting that kind of national leadership.

Pick up the business section of any major newspaper and you read about layoffs. What is going to happen to these people? In the boom times of the 1990s, the economy absorbed many displaced workers, even if they couldnt find employment equivalent to what they had. Now, these folks are falling through the so-called safety net during what the analysts insist is a "recovery." But, since the job situation makes it clear we are not recovering, the economists came up with an absurd title a "jobless recovery."

Well, brothers and sisters, we know better there is a word for it and the word is stagnation. And for the longer range, a couple of ominous clouds hang over the economic forecast for the North American continent.

First, our problems with foreign trade persist. NAFTA hurt both our nations . . . and even did the unthinkable, straining relations between the U.S. and Canada, one of the longest standing fair trade partnerships in history.

Now, as we approach the 10^th anniversary of NAFTA, the damage has not subsided. The job losses in our two nations caused by NAFTA run into the millions, and the toll is still rising. As the bottom feeders continue their search for the lowest possible wages, new foreign trade agreements are sought. One of them, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, has been christened "NAFTA on steroids."

A second fact that does not bode well for the long-range future is that the largest employer in the United States is now Wal-Mart a company that has raced to the bottom when it comes to wages and benefits, dragged suppliers down to its low standards, and hates unions with a passion. For the month of June alone, Wal-Marts sales totaled 16 billion dollars, with three billion of that total coming outside the United States. The destructive monster keeps growing.

And if we dont turn this around soon, we will be looking at long-term losses in our membership, and thus our power to change things for the better in our industries and in our society as a whole.

I read an article recently that retail sales were down, causing concern among the economists. These wise fellows said this is proof that the end of the Iraq war didnt produce the economic boom that had been expected.

What are these guys smoking? Jobs are disappearing. Opportunities for advancement are withering up. Layoffs are rampant. People are scrimping to pay for luxuries like medicine. And these guys were expecting a retail boom? What were people supposed to spend in the stores?

But that article drove home a point. No matter what is happening to the lives of real people no matter how many industrial jobs are being eliminated no matter how much income inequality grows the elite in our society still happily count on retail to pull us through. And I kind of understand why.

Our past prosperity has been a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it has allowed us North Americans to enjoy a high standard of living. But the downside has been that far too many of us dont define ourselves as union members, or members of a political party, or adherents of a particular faith. The common thread among North Americans is that we are consumers. We want to acquire as much stuff as possible and we dont care where its made as long as we get the best price.

Im sure everybodys seen that paragraph that somebody put together some years ago about how Joe Smith wakes up and uses his German-made razor to shave, watches his Korean-made television, puts on his Pakistani-made shirt and Mexican-made trousers, drives to the unemployment office in his Japanese-made car and wonders why he cant find a good-paying union job. Anybody think thats a stretch? Obviously, old Sam Walton saw that scene as the future reality and acted on it, to the detriment of all of us.

We wonder why Wal-Mart has achieved such growth, when in fact that companys expansion is possible because we made it so. Wal-Mart is simply catering to what the people want, or at least what they think they want in the short run.

Those of us who are active in our union have been preaching buy union-made for years . . . at least I think we have. Check your clothes and shoes . . . see where theyre made. Unless you have a union shirt or jacket on, I bet were talking imports. Were all partly guilty of that, because we live in a society that doesnt value its domestic manufacturing capacity anymore. Were swimming against a tide that shows no sign of being turned back anytime soon.

It goes back to that lack of idealism that Ed talks about. By rights, as working people learn how corporate executives are robbing workers and shareholders to enrich themselves, we should be dragging those fats cats out of their plush offices, tarring and feathering them and riding them out of town on a rail. But we dont. And I think we dont because the culture of greed has spread throughout our society. And its affected many in our own ranks as well.

One of the worst examples of the culture of greed is privatization, the constant effort of investors to get their private mitts on essential services like electricity and health care. Privatization is one of the worst developments in the history of the United States so -- as always seems to happen with our worst traits it spread north and infested Canada. One would think, as we said last year, that the mess Alberta created for itself with deregulation would have knocked some sense into the leaders of other provinces. But privatization is apparently one ill wind that never quits blowing.

As I understand it, for now you have sidetracked the privatization craze from wrecking the Canadian national health care system. What a horrible day if the Canadian health care system, once the pride of the continent, looked more like the United States, where 41 million citizens have no health care insurance and the lack of access to prescription drugs for retirees remains a disgrace.

This will be the second straight year I have had the pleasure of applauding you for your role in convincing the Romanow Commission to recommend against privatizing Medicare. That idea should be kept where it belongs -- in the federal governments dead letter bin. Without your efforts, the rich and well-born would have destroyed a system that worked so well for so long and became a model for others to work toward. No one who has seen the ravages of corporate greed in other sectors of the economy could rationally propose turning health care over to the same wolves.

With that success, and while you are working on the reforms health care does need, I would urge you to make a similar effort to safeguard the pensions programs of your members. There is no substitute for the defined benefit pension plan. Those pensions along with the basic government programs -- are the solid rock foundation on which retirement security can be built. Your RRSPs can provide a valuable superstructure, but they are not substantial enough to provide retirement security by themselves.

Nowhere has that been seen more powerfully than by our members at a Portland, Oregon, utility owned by Enron. They suffered devastating losses and attributed the disaster to previous contracts in which they neglected improvements in their defined benefit plan. They were enamored of the soaring value the Enron stock, they said, and relied heavily on the Enron stock their employer was contributing to the employees 401(k) plans, which are the U.S. version of the RRSP.

Our Pension Power program has tremendous potential and has now planted solid roots. The vital first step came when a number of your local union pension funds agreed to participate and staff members from the International Office and local unions have attended a number of stockholder meetings of companies based in Canada this year. I expect our successes to grow as we continue these efforts.

Those are, of course, just a few of the areas worthy of your attention and I thank you in advance for your help. I know you will give it your best effort . . . of course, if I thought otherwise, I wouldnt be here. I know how I feel about whats going on in the world today. I know how many of you feel about it. And Im betting that there are hundreds of thousands of IBEW members and other workers, union and nonunion, who are also angry and fed up.

But weve got to prevent that anger from turning into bitter frustration. Instead, weve got to channel it into righteous anger that inspires us to get out there and change things.

You folks in this room are some of the finest local leaders to be found anywhere in the IBEW. You make a positive difference in your members lives every day. Its the work that we do as union leaders that has helped prevent things from getting even worse than they are. But weve got to speak out and look beyond our day-to-day jobs to see how we can build a better Canada and a better North America.

When were on the job, we build from the bottom up. Thats what we do every day. And thats one way were going to change things. But we also need to give it our best shot from the top down.

You know in advance what the vested interests will say when we do speak out. Anyone who dares to speak out for the little guy is immediately branded a "class warrior." Class warfare is apparently okay if it is declared from the top by the conservative politicians, but how dare the rabble have the gall to fight back.

Believe me when I tell you that I am afraid for our future if the political climate does not change. And when I say "our," I am not speaking merely of the IBEW or even the labor movement, but of the future of freedom and democracy in the United States, with all of the dire implications that carries for Canada and the rest of the world.

Unions do not flourish in unjust societies. Working people do not have hopes for advancement in nations where a tight band of thieves controls the wealth and the doors to opportunity. And yet I am afraid that is where we are headed.

We are getting pushed further out into the political wilderness, and we need to begin the trek back. None of us can do it alone, but together we can make that journey.

Do not underestimate your role in that process. You are the leaders in one of the greatest unions in the history of the world. What you say and do matters it matters a lot to your members and to communities.

We have got to start telling the truth now about what is happening and make our voices heard. And we have got to get our people out to vote to make sure that the voice of working people heard before they try to take that away too.

But we also know that there is no politician who alone can deliver a more honest and just society. It is a never-ending task that falls to all of us. Clearly, right now, our national economies arent producing enough jobs and of the jobs we do have, not enough of them are union. Those two facts both call for mobilization mobilize to the change the national political direction and mobilize to organize new members into our Brotherhood.

Thats part of our responsibility. This is our watch, and we will be judged by history. Lets do our jobs like only we can, because were the good guys.

Throughout my career, I have been inspired by the words of a brave and defiant labor leader, Eugene V. Debs. He went to jail for his beliefs, but without his struggles, none of us would have the rights we have today. And its these words from 1894 that give me strength and give me the confidence to know that we in the IBEW today are every bit as capable of fighting back in hard times as were our forerunners more than a century ago.

Debs wrote: "Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians.

But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun."

Lets use that vital and potential power, brothers and sisters. Thank you very much.