Prime Minister-designate Joe Clark: It's been a long evening; it's been a long campaign. We have achieved, and we have achieved together, a victory for change in this country and that is what we are together going to achieve.

 I want to begin by thanking my supporters here in Yellowhead who worked so hard to get me elected to the House of Commons, often in my absence. I appreciate very much the excellent work so many of you have done. Thank you.

And secondly, secondly: I want to thank all of the people of Canada for giving a new team of Canadians the opportunity to take responsibility for the direction of the affairs of a great nation of which we are all proud. A nation of which we are all proud and a nation of which we, if we continue to work together in partnership, can make a model for every other nation in the world.

 I was pleased as I know you all were to note the prime minister's acceptance, to note Mr. Trudeau's acceptance of the decision that has been registered tonight by the people of Canada and his willingness now that the governor-general will ask  my colleagues and me to take on the responsibility of forming a national government for Canada. We tonight, we tonight have been given that responsibility and we will begin tomorrow the planning and the preparation to give this country a government which will stimulate the economy to generate growth and jobs for Canadians.

A government that will strengthen the institutions of democracy in this country so that the people who live in Canada will have a firmer, stronger voice in the direction of the affairs of this country. And also, a government that will work with our other partners in this Confederation to modernize and to remodel the Canadian Confederation to make it suit the 1980s and to make this a nation where all of the people of this grand country, this great country, will find room to grow, room to find their own dreams, room to build their own lives. We will do that; we will do that together.

It was a big victory for us everywhere tonight, except in the province of Quebec, and the only big disappointment for me was Quebec. Quebecers, even if they did not vote for us, Quebecers voted massively for a federalism represented in the Liberal, Social Credit Conservative MPs. and I remain determined to form a truly national government, a government that can represent all corners of Canada: There will be in my cabinet effective- and respected representatives from the province of Quebec, and Quebec will not feel isolated in a Clark government.

 What want to do most of all tonight is to get down and meet many of you and thank you personally and shake your hand because you have been a great, great help to me.

But I want before doing that, I want to offer my congratulations, not only to all the candidates who won, but to all of the candidates of all of the parties who ran to make this democratic process strong and effective in Canada. While I am naturally saddened personally by the loss of some of the members of parliament who served with me and who would have been so helpful to us in the government we want to form. I am honoured by the strength and the ability of the people who have been elected as Progressive Conservative members of Parliament across this country. We represent a new team that can bring a new spirit and a new life to this country. But

I want also to congratulate the other members of other parties who were elected tonight, and particularly to extend my congratulations to the other party leaders. To Mr. Trudeau. Mr. Broadbent and Mr. Roy and to all of their members who ran under their banners and won. Election campaigns are times when party leaders and parties spell out the differences that we have in our approach to the nation's affairs and the nation's future.

Ladies and gentlemen, this campaign is over. There is a new national government formed, it will be a national government that will be there for some time to come, and I look forward to working with the leaders and the members of other parties represented in the House of Commons. Because I know that while we have differences that get expressed in an election campaign, we share together a common dedication to this country and a common determination to make it grow and to keep this Canada together. I said often during the election campaign that my promise was not to solve your problems for you, my promise was not to build your country for you. My promise and that of my colleagues was to solve your problems with you, to build our country with you. to establish a partnership between the people who sit in government and the Canadian people to whom we are all responsible. Deeply grateful I am deeply grateful, deeply grateful tonight for the support you have shown to me and my candidates all across this country, but ladies and gentlemen, we have just begun to work.

Our partnership together, our work together, only begins tonight and I will be counting on your partnership, counting on your advice, counting on your help, counting on your prayers in building this country and in recognizing the great potential that we have here in this most fortunate, most blessed country.

There is one last thing. one last thing. I have here a note that says, to Joe Clark, good luck from James Hill, Rural Route 1, Spruce Grove. James. I think he is not quite of voting age and I think too that really demonstrates part of what we want to do here, because as I have travelled this country, in the last two months particularly, but in the last three years what struck me most is how much we are a land of opportunity, how much we are a land where there is no limitation upon what an individual Canadian can become except the limitation that, a Canadian man, woman, child places on him or herself.

And ladies and gentlemen, what we must do now, now that we have the mandate and the support and the partnership of the people of Canada, is create in this country that atmosphere which encourages each individual Canadian to reach out and develop his strength to make the most of the powers and the possibilities that each Canadian has.

And so, to James, who sends me the note, I say not simply thank you, I say that our government, our determination is to make this a country in which you can always realize, and others your age can always realize, the kind of possibilities that are open to us uniquely in this country.

Thank you. God bless.