Hello, everyone. It’s always great to be back in the Lower Mainland. It was home for me for many years and I miss it regularly, even on beautiful rainy days like these ones. The rain is just part of the experience. For those of you coming to visit, it’s how we do things, and the key in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland: is never let the rain prevent you from doing what you were going to do anyway, and this certainly is not a day in which the rain was going to prevent us from doing this. 

It’s so great to be here with the Vice-Admiral, with so many members of the Royal Canadian Navy, and I have a list of dignitaries I want to recognize, but before I do, I want to talk directly with the workers.

I want to say thank you to all of you for being so extraordinary. You know, over the past number of years, I’ve worked with a lot of different companies and countries from around the world looking to build things in Canada, looking to invest in Canada, looking at solid, smart places for them to make sometimes billions of dollars worth of investment. I was talking about this with Dennis Washington earlier, on the decisions to make—in a world that is so interconnected and so filled with opportunities and good places to go, people keep choosing to come and invest in Canada. And yes, we have great natural resources, yes, we have trade deals with so many countries around the world—the only G7 country with a free trade deal with every other G7 country—but more than that, people keep showing up because of our greatest competitive advantage, that is Canadians themselves. Our workers are the best in the world: smart, ambitious, driven, hardworking.

(Applause)

They are the pitch we make when people everywhere around the world want a reliable partner. Canadians living in strong communities focused on the future, ambitious for themselves and their neighbours: you are the reason we are gathered here today. You are the ones to which we need to be so incredibly grateful. Thank you, my friends.

(Applause)

Mayor Buchanan, thank you for your welcome.

(Speaks in Indigenous language)

Rebecca, thank you for launching today’s ceremony and for all your work to preserve the Squamish language and teach others about it. It is extraordinarily important that, every bit as much as breaking a bottle of champagne on the bow, the cedar ceremony is now an intrinsic part of how we build ships here on the west coast of Canada. Thank you so much.

And of course, I want to thank John and Seaspan for having us all here today, along with my colleagues: Jonathan, Marie-France, Talib, Ron, and Wilson.

It’s a privilege to be here to mark this historic moment.

It’s a historic moment for our navy, for Seaspan, and of course, for the thousands upon thousands of workers whose efforts have made this possible. See, there’s a part of each and every one of you in this ship. As she sails the seas, as she defends our waters, as she safeguards Canadians and supports our allies across the oceans: she will be carrying a part of all of your legacy. You should be proud. I, for one, am incredibly proud of Canadian workers like you who continue to show the very best that Canada has to offer. 

This is a historic moment for Canada and this achievement comes at a crucial time in our history as we navigate a world—see what I did there?—navigate a world that is increasingly complex and unstable. You’ve all answered the call. You’ve stepped up to build this ship, and Canada has stepped up as well.

Actually, before 2015, we were spending less than 1% of our GDP on defence. Since then, defence spending has more than doubled, and we’re on track to tripling it by 2030. We’re investing in armoured vehicles, aircraft, submarines, icebreakers, and warships. We’re tackling new challenges in the Arctic with a renewed vision for Canada’s defence, a plan we call Our North, Strong and Free; our new Arctic foreign policy with which we’re building a secure, prosperous, and stable Arctic in partnership with Indigenous peoples; and our ICE pact with the U.S. and Finland, which is leveraging the expertise and knowledge of our military, our Coast Guard, and Indigenous peoples to make Canada safer and seize new opportunities both here in shipyards but also across the Arctic. And at the centre of it all is our National Shipbuilding Strategy thanks to which we are all here today.

We’re investing to create good jobs in shipyards from coast to coast to coast, in industries at every link of our supply chains to make sure that Canada can continue to show up in an uncertain and unstable world. We’re investing in our navy, our air forces, our army. We’re investing in our businesses. We’re investing in our workers. We are investing in Canadians, because that is the best investment a government can make. Confident countries invest in themselves and that is what we are doing here today, and that’s what we’re showing.

Of course, I’m not the only one to think that, per Canada… per capita, sorry, Canada is number three in the whole world in absolute terms when it comes to attracting foreign direct investment. The world is taking notice of what we and you are able to deliver here in Canada. Investors from every corner of the world invest in Canada, invest in Canadian workers because they know it’s a smart investment and we know that too. You’ve all had Canada’s back with your hard work through some difficult years, and we will have yours.

So, thank you so much for all the work and all the success that we are celebrating today. Bravo, and thank you, my friends. Thank you all so much.