Are you sure? [laughter] Dennis said a few minutes ago that he'd looked in the dictionary to find out what “integrity” really means, and for the most part he talked about it being some form of touching. And I think that anybody who gets up to try to speak about integrity might be a little "touched", but not necessarily "touching". You know it's interesting when you start playing with words and you start to look up in the dictionary what they really mean, technically, because often technically it has no relationship to what the world is really all about.

 "Integrity," probably to most people, means some form of honesty. You say, “There's a person with integrity," and I’d say that nine times out of ten - and this is an assumption on my part - that people mean, "Well, there’s an honest person.” They don't necessarily have to agree with what you say, but as long as they feel that you are saying something that you believe, they feel you have integrity. I'll take Bill Vanderzam for an example, because I think that in some ways Bill Vanderzam does have integrity. It’s not that I have to agree with what he says; if Bill Vanderzam says something that I feel he believes in, and he's sticking with it, then I sort of feel that Bill Vanderzam has integrity. And I think that's a common concept. I think that people honestly believe that if you are saying something that you honestly believe, you may have some form of integrity... yet... in a way, I doubt that, because I don't think that integrity has anything to do with what other people think about you. “Integrity”... integral... inner... Isn't it what you think about yourself? Then again, what do you think about yourself? I remember the other day I was talking to someone and they said, Well, what do you think about them? And I said, I don't know. I can only judge them by what I think about myself, and. ..er... I think I’d do it, and I think if I’d do it, I think maybe they'd do it. It was a political conversation!

  I think it's a fitting time to talk about integrity, because somehow integrity has a connotation of a world that doesn't change, when we live in changing times. We like to think of grandpa, we like to think of the past, and we say that in those days people had integrity. I guess I'm showing my age; I might think of Bob Dylan in the past, and think maybe that there was some integrity. But I think it's true that integrity in some way has something to do with things not changing, that we think of integrity as some sort of value that doesn't change, that if you change you don't have integrity. It's like my father-in-law... I hear him speaking to Mary and he said "That’s the way I am." What happened there? Did God zap him? [laughter] I mean, can't you change?

  I was at a seminar once where David Suzuki was speaking. He said, "Can you imagine the impact of the needle on civilization?" I thought - God, can I? [laughter] I think we can imagine that; and maybe that was the biggest impact for a thousand years. Suzuki said, "Don't worry about that, because that same kind of impact is happening now every fourteen minutes. It’s just that we don't know about it." Those are the kinds of impacts that changes are having on our life. And it seems to me that we have a real conflict with integrity today, because if we do associate it with a non-changing value, when we live in a world that's changing so rapidly - from an eco-nomic point of view, a technical point of view, and a social point of view - how can we justify that to ourselves? We feel ourselves changing. We feel our values changing. Everything about us is changing. And yet as the same time we have been taught by society that to not change is to have integrity. Never to change your mind is strength. Rigidity is strength. Flexibility is weak-ness. And we live in a society where rigidity can destroy us. We live in a society where only flexibility can see us through, because of the rapid change. And those kinds of conflicts within us I think are driving us a bit crazy: we don't know what to do. 

   When John was introducing me he put me in a special class. He said, Well, we have an artist here, we have an author - ordinary human beings - I suppose we can deal with them; somehow or other there may be some integrity there. But I’m going to introduce a politician and let him explain himself! [laughter] It's a very dangerous point of view, in my opinion, because what we are doing is saying of all those people who go in for politics, that we're going to get them here to talk about integrity but we don't expect them to ever understand it, we don't expect them to practice it, and, least of all, we don't expect them to ever stand on the stage and talk about it! But, believe me, I think it's one thing that politicians think about more than probably anyone else. I 'm not saying that they practice it more than anyone else, but they're under the gun more than everyone else. If you're a doctor you can write the odd prescription that you know does not really matter. If you're a lawyer you know you'll get paid whether you win or lose. If you're an artist, integrity seems to come from somewhere else...seems to. But when you're a politician people are always questioning your integrity. They’re saying, is he in it for himself? A politician told me the other day, "You know," he said, "they say that I got into politics because I was on the take; they say I got into politics because I was only thinking of myself; they say I only got into politics for my own self-fulfillment." And to them I say: picky, picky, picky, picky.” [laughter] You know we have our jokes about you too! [laughter]

   To me integrity is not a constant, in terms of values. Integrity, in some ways, is being able to change, and to assume new values as times change. Today, in the world of the microchip, in the days when nuclear holocaust faces us, in the days of social change occurring so rapidly and profoundly, would the integrity of our grandfathers see us through? Is integrity something that's constant or is it something that can change with the times? For instance, I think back to when I used to watch the movies between the Indians and the cowboys; I thought the cowboys were right. Now I'm not so sure. So if today I believe that maybe the Indians were right, have I lost my integrity? Because I began by thinking the cowboys were right? I remember all sorts of things that at one time I thought were correct but today do not. Is integrity never changing your mind? Is integrity never having your values change? I think this is very important to those people out there who look at us and say, either that person has integrity or that person does not have integ-rity: they're judging by whether or not you've changed. And if you’ve changed they wonder if you have integrity. Whereas I wonder whether people who don't change have integrity.

    All I know is that integrity is something that's very private, that no one out there can judge whether I have integrity. I can't judge whether you have integrity. Integrity is a private thing. It's something that I have to judge me by, not something that you can judge me by. It's not something that I can judge you by. Integrity is me, and to you it is you. It isn't some outside thing looking at me; it's me looking at me. In a way I associate integrity with compassion. You can hear people talking about compassion. Do they have it? Do I have it? I think it is related to integrity. One day I was in Woolworth's; I was buying a mirror. (I like to have a mirror to take on trips so that when I comb my hair I can see at the back whether my bald spot is covered. That's vanity, not integrity!) When I was standing in the line-up looking at the people coming through Woolworth's I could look them in the eye, and for the first time in my life I thought - God, for the most part they're just like me. In a society where we are trained to look for the differences in each other, in order to feel like individuals, it was a revelation to me. And I thought - here's a strange thing that's happening to me: I've just come to the realization that almost everyone I look at is more like me than not like me. The samenesses are more in number than the differences. I don't have to look for differences in order to be an individual; I can be individualistic and know that I'm the same as my fellows. And on that day I thought, maybe I have learned a little bit about integrity, that integrity doesn't necessarily mean that I'm better. It may mean more that I am the same. Integrity may not be such a private thing after all: it may be that integrity is just being yourself, not necessarily stopping people from getting past the glaze in the eye and seeing you, but allowing them to see you - and hoping to God they like you. But not being so afraid of allowing them in that you don't like yourself.

  Integrity - in the English language and in any other language - I think is a changing thing. It's a changing commodity within yourself. What you used to be, you may not be today. It doesn't make you better; it doesn't make you worse. Integrity is pride in yourself. It took me a great many years not to care what you think. And it took me a great many years to care what I think about myself. Before you can start to make the kind of changes where you can have integrity - I’m talking now on an intellectual plane, not an emotional plane - and respect yourself, I think you have to make some intellectual changes. Your emotions may lag behind your intellectual discoveries, but I think they will catch up, as long as you can keep some intellectual purity. Intellectually you start to learn about life; emotionally it takes a bit longer for those things to come together. But until the time comes when you can like yourself, and care about it more than others liking you, until you come to the point where it’s more important to be respected than liked by others, integrity is an elusive thing. It's really important to like yourself, and I don't mean that in some egocentric way, but to respect yourself. When you get to the point where you respect yourself, I don't think you have to worry about the word “integrity.” Because integrity is a very private thing...  a very private thing.

  But I suppose I wouldn't be doing service to politicians if I didn't talk about politics a bit. Graham Lea wouldn't be here, sharing this evening with you, if I weren't a politician, so I sup-pose I should say a few words about it. I am concerned about the relationship between politicians and the people who vote. I am concerned about politicians and the lack of respect. I am con-cerned about politicians and the fact that when I walk around and I listen, and I eavesdrop on conversations at the next table, I find it's a common thought that no politician has integrity, that it's a common thought that no politician is honest - not with you, and not with himself or herself. And I see that as dangerous. Because today, in this rapidly changing world, we are a fearful and anxious society. Rapid change does that to us. We are particularly vulnerable in rapidly changing times. We are vulnerable to the simplest form of demagoguery, because of our anxiety for our future. I find it strange that today people say to me, "What about our future? I don't know what the future holds." And I think to myself - when did anybody ever know what the future holds? But I do know one thing: that if we do have some integrity, that if we do respect ourselves, it's very difficult to have disrespect for others. Because one of the things involved in respecting yourselves is taking an honest look at yourselves, as objectively as we can, and still liking yourself. 

  It reminds me of a conversation in one of Sartre's short stories called Dirty Hands. It was a fictitious country. The scene was the end of the Second World War. That fictitious Eastern European country had been under Nazi occupation. The Nazis were pulling out, and at the gate, waiting to come in, was the Russian army. While the Nazi occupation had been in place, work-ing underground had been a coalition of people - Social Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, Communists - working together against a common threat, the Nazis. At the end, when the Nazis were pulling out and the Russians were at the border, these people who had been working underground together were discussing putting together a coalition government, for the good of everyone. And the conversation in Sartre's story was between this old Communist who'd been a peasant and worked his way up through the ranks and a young intellectual Communist out of university, and the question they were discussing was whether they should join together in this coalition, for a common purpose, for the common good. The old Commie wanted to take them up on it, to join with his fellow nationalists for the betterment of the society they lived in. And the young intellectual out of university wanted to rush to the border and invite the Russians in, to set up utopia... from his point of view. The conversation had been going on for a while, and finally the old Communist looked at the young Communist and he said, "Now I know you. You are a person who loves ideas. It's people you can’t stand. You don't like the sly look of them; you don't like the smell of them; you don't like their dirty hands." And I look at life a bit like that. 

   If you look at yourself honestly you will see that there isn't much difference between you and me, that for the most part we're the same - the same fears, the same desires...the same wants. So when it comes down to integrity - if you want to know whether someone else has it, look at yourself. I suspect they have about the same amount. We're about the same, you and I, not much different. If we can all look at ourselves honestly, objectively, we have the same foibles, the same strengths, the same desires... we're pretty much the same. Integrity?...We have about the same amount, each and every one of us. The trick is, can we look at ourselves honestly and decide whether it is respect for ourselves, from ourselves, that we want, or love from our fellows that we want. To me integrity is a simple thing, not easy to achieve - and I’m not going to tell you that I can achieve it! - but if I could achieve total respect for myself, in my quiet moments, then I would have integrity. If I could do that, integrity wouldn't even be something I'd have to discuss with you or me. It's respect for myself that counts. It’s respect for yourself that counts. What other people think of us really does not matter much. Integrity is not love of oneself, but respect for oneself. And as we enter into even more turbulent and changing times, if we had, each one of us, a liberal lacing of integrity, we wouldn't have to worry about the demagoguery that can destroy us, because we’d have some inner strength that we could rely on in the crunch. And I think we need it at this point. I think we really do need to have integrity. And it's not something we can judge about each other. It's the inner strength that we’re going to need to go through the changing, turbulent, disconcerting times that we are already living with.

  As a politician... I am proud of it.  I can think of no more honourable vocation than to be a politician. To me it is the epitome of citizenship. I will not always please myself in politics, but if I can fifty percent of the time please myself in politics I'll be satisfied with my integrity. But you know what we really need in this province? We really need to be satisfied with ourselves We do need that integrity, that respect for ourselves, and forget about the love of others. To me that's what integrity means. But it's a living language, this language we speak to one another. For someone else “integrity” might mean something quite different. It could mean having other people respect you. It could mean having your dad not mad at you. It could mean a lot of things. But I do believe that this topic tonight is timely, because it's only integrity that’s going to get us through some pretty trying times. All I can say, in closing, is that if you, and I, have integrity, then we'll do alright... but if it's love we're looking for, we're in a lot of trouble.

   Thank you.                                                                                                                                     Return to INDEX