CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Hello.

Thank you Dr. Haass for having me here at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Thank you everyone for being here.

It’s great to be in New York.

This is a place where the world comes together, comes to connect. And the council is a great institution for that very reason.

Last month, Canada welcomed President Biden to our Parliament.

Your President is a great guy. He is not only a strong partner of Canada, he is an enduring friend.

Before he started his address, I remembered how President Reagan, over three decades ago, called the U.S.-Canada border “a meeting place, rather than a dividing line.”

And I pointed out that, today, our border is no longer just the place where we meet each other; it is the place where we will meet the moment.

And this is a moment of uncertainty like we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

We are three years into a global pandemic.

The rising cost of living is putting real stress on families; despite job growth and wage growth, there’s a lot of economic anxiety.

Climate change is having a real, and terrifying, impact on peoples’ lives.

War has returned to Europe, and authoritarianism is on the rise.

Antagonistic states around the world are using our economic interdependence for their own geopolitical advantage.

All around us, we see more and more polarization.

Every day, it seems like new threats arise that threaten to weaken democracy.

So let’s talk about meeting this moment. What Canada can be for the U.S., and what we can be together, for the world.

Before I do that, let me talk about where we’ve been, and how we got here.

Let’s think back to that time of Reagan, and the optimism we all had about the inevitable triumph of our way of life.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, we were sure that market-based democracy was triumphant and was going to take hold around the world.

Political elites devoted themselves to trade liberalization and deregulation; to lowering taxes for corporations.

The economy would grow faster and everyone would get richer.

Well, the former happened. The latter, not so much.

Jobs that went offshore weren’t being replaced and the wages that supported entire communities stagnated.

When 2008 happened, banks got bailouts and families got foreclosures.

People at home were getting left behind. The middle class was getting hollowed out.

And at the same time, we had that promise of globalization. That the rising tide would encircle the globe and lift all boats.

Well, let’s just admit we weren’t being honest with ourselves about that either.

We talked up the superiority of our system, but turned a blind eye to the authoritarianism, worker exploitation, and environmental degradation on the other side of the world, and that our prosperity relied on.

And that prosperity? Those in charge weren’t making sure it was shared across the board at home either.

We were not living up to the promises of progress.

When the Berlin Wall fell, everyone thought that our system had won and authoritarianism had been defeated.

That it hasn’t is not because our values weren’t the right ones.

It’s because we didn’t live up to these values, entirely.

If we want our system and values to triumph, then everyone in our society and on the other side of the planet must benefit.

Especially now, when we’re facing a new generation of challenges: the pandemic, inflation, climate change, economic anxiety, and authoritarian regimes that want to take us back to a world where might makes right.

If we don’t step up, other forces will step in.

As likeminded democracies, as major economies, we need to work together to meet this moment.

We need to stand up for what we believe in and be honest with ourselves about where we’re not doing enough.

We need to engage with the world and put in place policies that reinforce our values.

If we believe in freedom, equality, a healthy environment, rule of law, then we have to believe in it for everyone.

In the aftermath of 2008, there was a lot of distrust and anger from people.

GDP grew but wages stalled—and the promise of progress – that each generation would do better through the hard work of the one before – no longer seemed to hold true.

So, by the mid-teens, people were faced with a political choice.

One was to burn it all down – to attack our institutions, to be isolationist, protectionist, nativist.

The other was to get to work fixing it.

In Canada, that’s the path we have chosen.

While other places were tearing up trade deals, we actually signed more.

Canada is the only G7 country to have free trade agreements with the rest of the G7.

We signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Canada has privileged access to almost two thirds of the global economy.

The reason we were able to do it, was because we made sure these deals were fair.

Trade creates growth, but you need policies that ensure that that growth is fair.

When we renegotiated NAFTA, we improved it by including stronger standards for workers, and more protections for our environment.

And in so doing, secured one of the biggest free-trade zones in the world, and with it, millions of jobs.

In order to get our trade deal done with Europe, we included gender and labour provisions, and environmental protections.

Going forward, we need to think even more strategically.

The pandemic and the war in Ukraine, among other factors, revealed our strategic vulnerabilities.

When Russia uses energy as leverage, and when China restricts access to markets, populations become vulnerable in very real ways.

That is why we must establish resilient supply chains, stable trade relations, and alignment on values.

So how do we do that?

We can’t just punish bad actors. We can’t just say we want our companies to restrict the amount of, for example, critical minerals they buy from China.

Instead, we should simply commit to sourcing our critical minerals from places that ban forced labour, that have safety standards, that pay their workers a living wage, that have high environmental protections, that work in partnership with Indigenous Peoples, that create incentives that make the right thing to do also the smart thing to do.

Putting labour, environmental, and other protections in trade deals not only stops the race to the bottom, it also puts the pressure on for a race to the top.

And when we do this, people around the world want to join us.

This is where the market is going.

Countries in Europe that relied on Russian fossil fuels have accelerated their investments in clean energy.

Here in the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act is mobilizing capital towards a clean economy on a historic scale.

Canada is making our own investments to meet this demand and be the reliable supplier of clean energy a net-zero world needs.

We already have one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world, with around 83% of our electricity generated from non-emitting sources, and a plan to reach 100% by 2035.

This is a huge competitive advantage for Canada.

We see these choices at play in other ways, too.

On the industrial scale, look at what’s happening with steel: global demand is fairly flat, but the demand for green steel? Well, it’s going through the roof.

And you know who makes some of the cleanest steel in the world? Workers in Canada.

But that didn’t happen by accident.

To use a Canadian expression, our government saw where the puck was going, and we started making investments in our workers’ future.

We saw what was coming with climate change, and the trillions of dollars of global investment that were lining up to build the clean economy.

We invested in a decarbonization project at the Arcelor Mittal Dofasco plant in Ontario that will see Canada make some of the cleanest steel in the world.

And that means third generation steel workers can know that good middle-class jobs will be there for their kids and their grandkids. With good jobs there for new Canadians, too.

That’s opportunity. That’s possibility. That’s growth.

When everyone can see possibilities for themselves, everyone has a stake in our success.

Which is so important. Because for democracies like ours to work, everyone has to have a stake in it.

And I mean everyone.

From the newly arrived, racialized immigrant, to the fifth-generation blue-collar working dad who doesn’t see where he fits in anymore.

As leaders, we have to create the conditions that create opportunity for everyone.

In Canada, we’ve invested in strengthening the middle classn education, in skills.n health care, dental care, and child care.

And we’re already seeing the results on a macroeconomic scale.

By rolling out a $10/day child care program, we’ve seen women’s participation in the economy reach an all-time high.

Global investors are looking for stability, for workers that are well supported, and a constructive political environment.

That’s what you get in Canada.

I’ve sketched out a few ideas here this morning, so let me connect the dots.

The world is in a tough place. Democracy is under threat. The old way of doing things isn’t going to work anymore. Things are changing fast. People are polarized.

We are at an inflection point, and people are anxious about all the changes that lie ahead.

We’ve got authoritarian states claiming that the reason democracy isn’t winning is because there’s a flaw in the theory of democracy.

We know that’s not true.

But of all the things that erode democracy, the failing of the promise of progress is the most pernicious.

That people no longer believe that the next generation will do even better than this one.

Canada and the U.S. – as robust democracies, as trading partners, as G7 members and NATO allies – have a role to play in making sure we are living up to that promise.

We all need to be more consequential in our decision-making.

We need to look at the world with a wider understanding that economic policy is security policy is climate policy, is social policy.

Authoritarian states want to tear down what we have taken decades to build.

But after working for more than seven years, and implementing thoughtful, strategic policies, such as fairer trade, pollution pricing, child care and dental care, we’re strengthening our communities, our economies, and our democracies.

Canada has worked to demonstrate that when we strengthen the middle class, we strengthen social cohesion, we reinforce faith in our democratic institutions at home, and engage with the world in consequential and impactful ways.

And major global investors are coming to Canada to benefit from that.

Canada will always be a reliable partner.

The key is simple: put people first.

As your President says: Grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.

Put peoples’ dignity, their rights, their environment, and their future at the centre of what you do as policymakers, as business people, as commentators, as champions of democracy and rules-based trade.

That’s how we deliver on the promise of progress, for everyone.

Thank you.