It is a pleasure to address you this morning.

Canada is a proudly bilingual country, so I will begin with a few words in French and then proceed in English.

The world has changed. Canada recognised that change early and acted.

We are building our strength at home and diversifying our partnerships abroad.

We are catalysing one trillion dollars of investment to build a more resilient, competitive and sovereign economy.

In an uncertain world, Canada offers the stability of a trusted partner and the unique opportunities of a country that is becoming the most connected major economy in the world.

Today, we are doubling down on our plan by making our tax system the best in the advanced world for new investment, by accelerating the speed with which we approve projects, by deepening one Canadian economy, and by reinvesting in our transportation system and national broadband to make Canada the most connected economy in the world.

I want to begin with harbours.

The origins of the nation of Canada began in the summer of 1604, when the French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed across the Atlantic to Nova Scotia’s south shore.

He searched for a safe anchorage around blustery Cape Sable and into the Bay of Fundy, where he found what he described as “one of the finest harbours” he had ever seen.

Port-Royal offered shelter from the wild storms of the Atlantic, but it quickly became something far more: a base perfectly situated for trade, exploration and the building of one of the most diverse and successful nations in history.

Today, four centuries on, I welcome you to a Canada which is both a safe harbour and a base to build perfectly situated to build in the new global economic order.

The world is becoming more divided and dangerous.

Sovereignty and openness are now in tension. Economic integration is being weaponised. Tariffs are used as leverage. Financial plumbing as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

Technological change is accelerating, changing the nature of war, the structure of economies, and the capacity of states to govern.

Canada recognised the rupture earlier than most. Our response reflects the two lessons we have taken from it.

First, we must take care of ourselves, and second, we must take care of each other.

Taking care of ourselves means building our strength at home and diversifying our partnerships abroad.

We know we cannot control what others do, but we can be masters in our own home.

This is our primary focus. It’s what our government, provinces, private sector and above all, Canadians themselves have begun together – a great national effort to build Canada strong.

In this process of building sustainable prosperity for Canadians, we are creating enormous opportunity for investors.

Our goal is to catalyse one trillion dollars of investment in Canada over the next five years – in energy, transportation, data, defence, and beyond.

To that end, in our first year as government, we cut taxes on incomes, capital gains, and new business investment.

We have begun building one Canadian economy by removing every federal barrier to internal trade. We’ve made it easier for Canadian workers to take their skills anywhere in the country.

And we are now accelerating provincial and territorial governments initiatives to tear down their barriers that have divided our economy for generations.

Our government has launched our most significant regulatory reforms in generations to fast-track nation-building infrastructure.  We have already referred 27 nation-building initiatives to the new Major Projects Office – new ports, mines, and energy corridors from every region of the country that now represent $500 billion in new private investment opportunities.

We are unleashing our full potential as an energy superpower.

By advancing a potential pipeline that would carry at least one million barrels of low-emission Alberta oil per day to Asian markets, while creating a new industry of large-scale carbon capture and storage.

By doubling our liquid natural gas exports to 50 million tonnes annually by 2030, and then doubling them again.

By building nuclear power across the value chain from the operational SMRs to utility scale generators while expanding our world-leading uranium production.

By doubling our electricity grid, building on our advantage of the lowest-cost power in the G7 and second-lowest emission power in the OECD. If you need clean, affordable power – and who doesn’t? – Canada is your answer.

Just last month, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, the Federal government and the Innu Nation announced largest clean energy investment in North American history – 14 GW of hydro, wind and storage – the functional equivalent of 18 Hoover Dams. Enough to light, heat and cool every home in Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver combined.

That is what an energy superpower looks like when it decides to act like one.

Canada is building its strength everywhere.

We are undertaking the biggest increase in defence spending since World War II. We are now meeting our NATO targets and have already provisioned within our budget the path to 4% of GDP in total defence spending by 2030.

We will maximise the impact of that spending on our security and our economy. Our Defence Industrial Strategy that will catalyse half a trillion dollars in investment over the next decade – building on Canadian strengths in aerospace, shipbuilding, artificial intelligence (AI), cyber, quantum, robotics and autonomous systems. Dual-use applications that will drive innovation and productivity across the wider economy.

Canada is rapidly diversifying its export markets

Nominal goods exports since 2024, per cent change

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Canada is now the best-connected economy in the world.

In the past year, we have signed over 50 critical minerals agreements with more than fifteen countries – unlocking $20 billion in investment while reducing dependence on foreign chokeholds in critical supply chains.

Over the same period, we have signed more than 20 trade and security deals across five continents. We completed our most recent deal, with the United Arab Emirates, in a record 47 days.

Canadian businesses now enjoy tariff-free access to 1.5 billion consumers.

Over the next six months, we intend to double that number through new trade deals, from ASEAN to India.

We are also deepening our ties with our most reliable, trusted partners.

We are the only non-European member of SAFE, the EU’s defence procurement initiative. And next month, we will begin discussions with the EU – the world’s second-largest economy – to build a unique security and economic alliance.

Our core objective of all these partnerships is to increase our strategic autonomy.

Because we live in a world where integration has been weaponised.

Because a country that cannot feed, fuel, or defend itself is not truly sovereign.

Because today strategic autonomy extends to building partnerships in core capabilities across AI, payments, space, critical minerals, and clean energy.

Because when we invest in these capabilities at home and combine them with the strengths of trusted partners abroad, we multiply their value. We create greater scale for Canadian companies, greater resilience for our country, and greater opportunities for investors.

And to our American friends, let me say this.  We will always be neighbours, and Canada will continue to be the U.S.’s most important partner in many key areas.

After all, even at times of disagreement during our long history, we have always maintained deep ties.

These arrangements work when we engage as true partners that respect each other’s traditions and sovereignty.

When those opportunities return, Canada will be an even better partner – stronger, more resilient, more independent – ready to advance our mutual economic and security interests.

Canada has unparalleled market access because we have what the world wants. 

And because our reputation – as a reliable, predictable partner – has rarely been more valuable in a world where transactions are replacing relationships, and zero-sum is favoured over win-win.

We are blessed with many commodities and capabilities in Canada, but we have earned our most valuable asset – trust.

The IMF Canada to post the second-fastest G7 growth

IMF real GPD growth, per cent

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We are just getting started, but the early results are encouraging.

Canada is projected to have the second-fastest growth in the G7 this year and next.

Non-U.S. exports are up sharply and are on track to double over the next decade. 

Foreign investment is running at nearly twice the rate of our nearest G7 peer.

Global investors are increasingly choosing Canada

Foreign direct investment per capita since 2025, U.S. dollars

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Canada now ranks as the most attractive country in the world for infrastructure investment.  Our capital markets host 40% of the world’s mining companies. Our pension funds are among the world’s most experienced infrastructure investors, and our banks among its most resilient.

It is this combination – resources, energy, technology, talent, and capital – brought together at scale, that makes Canada unique.

A ship is safe in harbour, but lying in harbour is not what ships are for.

Canada understands the world had changed. We know that nostalgia is not a strategy.

And we know that, in a crisis, fortune always favours the bold.

Canada has never been more connected or more ambitious.

We are now going to double down on our strategy.

Canada’s low net debt provides capacity to invest

All levels of government net debt, per cent of GDP

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At a time when investors are demanding to be fully compensated for risk, we will maximise Canada’s fiscal advantage, already the strongest in the G7.

That starts with discipline. Our government is reducing the size of the civil service by 10% and cutting spending on consultants by 20%. Overall, we are reducing annual growth in operating spending from over 8% in the previous decade to less than 2%.

This is not austerity as a fetish. It is part of our focus on distinguishing between operating and capital expenditures so that we can both preserve our vital social programs and ensure our precious fiscal capacity is focused on growing our economy.

I can announce today that we are on track to balance the operating budget next year, one year ahead of schedule, while maintaining the lowest overall deficit in the G7.

Canada enters this period of investment with the strongest fiscal position and lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio among major economies.

This gives us both the capacity to invest alongside private capital and the macroeconomic resilience that investors value in these uncertain times.

Going forward, we will increasingly optimise our balance sheet, by recycling assets to free up capital to invest in building Canada strong.

Our goal is simple: to make Canada the most attractive place in the G7 to invest.

We are strengthening our case in three ways.

Canada offers the G7's most competitive tax treatment for new investment

Marginal effective tax rates on new business investment, per cent

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First, we are making it cheaper to invest.

Effective today, Canada will allow immediate expensing for most new capital investment.

Two-thirds of assets will now qualify – from machinery and manufacturing equipment to software, patents, and R&D, as well as fibre, rail, pipelines, and the other infrastructure needed to build and connect our economy.

The effect is straightforward: when you invest in Canada, you can deduct substantially more of that investment immediately. We call it the Productivity Mega Deduction because the advantage it confers is huge. Canada’s policy will now cover more than four times the capital assets previously eligible for immediate expensing.

Today’s announcement will make Canada by far the most tax-competitive advanced economy for new business investment, with the lowest marginal effective tax rate in the G7 – less than half the U.S. rate, roughly one-third of the OECD average, and one-quarter of the G7 average.

Put simply: your investment dollars will go a lot further in Canada than anywhere else in the advanced world.

Second, we are making it faster to build.

We have already begun accelerating major nation-building projects through the Major Projects Office. Now we will apply that same urgency and efficiency more broadly through the new Build Canada Strong Act.

For projects and supply chains, our standard will be simple: One project. One review. One year.

Canada will remain a country of high standards. But high standards do not require slow decisions. Speed, certainty, and predictability are themselves competitive advantages. 

Investors should know that when Canada says it wants something built, Canada will get it built.

Third, we will connect Canada even better, to itself and to the world.

I am announcing today that we will seek private investment through long-term concessions to operate Canada’s four largest airports.

Following best practice in other countries, the Government of Canada will retain ownership of the underlying land and assets, but we will unlock their true value, by bringing in new capital and expertise into their operations and growth.

We will reinvest the tens of billions of dollars of capital we raise into the infrastructure that Canada needs for the next generation.

That will mean investing in regional airports and providing better and more affordable regional and remote air connections. It will mean a better passenger experience.

It will mean investing in new local transportation infrastructure to make commutes easier and faster for everyday Canadians.

And will mean helping to finance new nation-building infrastructure, including a sovereign broadband backbone that connects Canadians from coast to coast to coast, with more direct, secure links to Europe and Asia.

Canadian pension funds already invest successfully in many airports around the world. It is time to bring that same expertise home to more directly benefit all Canadians.

And through our new sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong Fund, Canadians themselves will retain a stake in the future value we create.

Taken together, these measures represent a fundamental shift in how Canada approaches investment.

Lowering the cost of capital. Shortening the distance between decision and construction. Unlocking public assets to build the infrastructure of the future. Ensuring all Canadians directly benefit.

We have the resources, the talent, the fiscal capacity, and access to the world's largest pools of capital.

Now we are matching those fundamental advantages with the speed, ambition, and execution needed to build.

Canadians know that it’s not just what we build. It’s how we build.

We will build sustainably: by protecting our lands and our waters, and by using our clean-energy advantage to lower emissions and boost competitiveness.

We will build inclusively: in true partnership with Indigenous Peoples (whose leaders join us today), including by ensuring their communities have direct stakes in the prosperity we create together.

And we will build in solidarity with Canadian workers: creating the skills, careers and opportunities that ensure the benefits of this transformation are broadly shared.

Through the Canada Strong Fund, we will invest alongside private capital in nation-building projects so that all Canadians have direct stakes in Canada’s future.

Canadians take care of each other. We believe in equal access to education, health care and social services. We are building universal childcare and affordable housing at scale.

Those same principles inform our approach to artificial intelligence: AI for All.

Canadians helped develop AI. Now, we intend to capture its potential across the entire intelligence infrastructure stack: the clean energy that powers it, the compute and cloud that run it, and the frontier AI, quantum, and robotics that will transform our economy.

Our AI for All strategy is distinguished by a singular focus on empowering people. We will build AI literacy across the country, give every post-secondary student access to a trusted AI agent, and help workers and businesses adopt AI to make them more productive.

Let me conclude by coming back to harbours, or more precisely to ports.

Canada is building its ports again. Deep-water ports on the Atlantic, Hudson’s Bay and the Pacific. New gateways to Europe and Asia. And, for the first time, new ports and trade corridors that open our Arctic to the world.

We won’t use those harbours to shelter from a stormy world. Instead, we are expanding our ports to connect to the opportunities in it.

This is Canada today: a country that is building, trading and investing with an ambition and speed not seen in generations.

A country that is predictable, reliable and principled in a world that is anything but.

A country boldly unleashing its enormous potential.

We are just getting started. We look forward to our journey together.

Thank you.