My friends, it is a great honour to once again be part of this summit this year and participating in ASEAN summits personally since 2017. This is my second time visiting Indonesia in a year, and some of you may know a number of ministers from our government have been engaged recently in all of your different countries across the region. Canada and ASEAN now count more than 45 years of partnership. This week marks a historic milestone, as alluded to by Joko, the launch of the ASEAN-Canada Strategic Partnership.

The launch of the Strategic Partnership between Canada and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a historic milestone in our relationship.

Canada is a Pacific nation. Indo-Pacific is our neighbourhood. This partnership truly matters to us. Canada deeply respects the centrality of ASEAN to this region. Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy and ASEAN’s outlook on the Indo-Pacific are aligned. We share clear commitments to peace and stability, openness and transparency, to development and economic cooperation, and to an understanding that international rules are essential for growth. Canada is committed to increasing our engagement and being an even more active presence in the region. Last year, Canadian exports from and imports to ASEAN increased by 29% from the year prior. That’s great, but we need to do even more. In the nearer term, Canada looks forward to concluding a Canada-ASEAN free trade agreement. In the longer term, Canada would very much like to join ASEAN-led mechanisms such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus. And in the meantime, we will continue our support for the Canada-ASEAN Scholarships and Educational Exchanges, the ASEAN-Canada Plan of Action and the Women, Peace and Security agenda in ASEAN, as well as for international assistance to eligible ASEAN members.

These past years have been difficult all around the world, but they’ve also shown us just how interconnected we all are. Whether it’s because of the pandemic, natural disasters or conflicts. We’re seeing it with Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is exacerbating challenges like food insecurity right around the world, including here in this region. I welcome the release of a joint statement about cooperating more closely on food security in the coming years.

Canada can help in a number of ways. We can contribute to food and energy security. We’re a reliable trade partner. We can leverage the expertise of our private sector and invest in growth that benefits all sides, including through technical capacity building. We can work together to tackle climate change. We’re an excellent investment destination. We’ve seen much progress on many initiatives from our Indo-Pacific strategy that will bring mutual benefits for ASEAN and for Canada.

As I mentioned to a number of colleagues and friends that I was coming to Jakarta for the ASEAN summit, people remarked on how far away that was and how long and perhaps gruelling the travel that would be to come here. All of you who go the other way to our time zone in New York regularly know that it is a challenging trip.

But regardless of the geographical distances, these past years have shown us just how connected and close we all are. Things that happen in any corner of the world now affect every corner of the world. More importantly, things that happen to people in any corner of the world have impacts on people in every other corner of the world.

And when we look around at the challenges each of us face, whether it’s from extreme weather events, whether it’s from the rapid pace of technological change, whether it’s from conflict or economic insecurity, as families and communities wonder how long their jobs are going to last, whether there’s prosperity for them. All of us are facing the same challenges. Affordability, concerns about the future, concerns that maybe the institutions we’ve built over the past decades are not up to the challenge of meeting the moments of the coming decades. What citizens need most is stability, reassurance and the confidence that as changing as the future is, together, as leaders, we’re building a plan not just to get through it as countries, but to make sure everyone gets through it as citizens, as people, as families, and as neighbourhoods, as communities. So, even as we come together here in very different regions of the world, we do so with common values and a common goal to make sure that the promise of progress that drives all of our countries, the idea that the hard work of one generation leads to better opportunities and better outcomes for the next generation, to make sure that that promise continues to hold true in an uncertain and sometimes scary world.

So, the more we can keep coming together, rolling up our sleeves and working on our shared problems, the more we’re going to be able to solve them, not just for us sitting around this table, but more importantly for the citizens at home, hoping we’re going to make it a bit better. That’s what gathers us here. That’s why I’m so pleased to be a strategic partner at ASEAN, because it means good opportunities here for people in ASEAN, but also good opportunities for people back home in Canada.

That is what keeps us moving forward.

Thank you very much, my friends!