Good morning.
It’s great to be here with my New Brunswick colleagues.
Thank you to Maple Leaf Homes for welcoming us.
Erika, Bill, Chris, and their team have been building for over three decades.
They started building homes for mining camps in the far North – where the cold conditions and short construction seasons made traditional homebuilding difficult.
So, they built homes indoors in controlled conditions, with the precision and strength required to withstand the harsh elements.
That same ingenuity is very much alive here at your facilities in Fredericton.
You are refining your craft in the manufacturing of factory-built homes.
With state-of-the art machinery, the latest technology, and local talent, you are building more homes, faster, that are more energy efficient and affordable for Canadians.
At this facility, construction is active 22 hours a day.
Using softwood lumber from the Atlantic provinces, Québec and British Columbia, New Brunswick-made kitchens, and engineered wood from Quebec, Maple Leaf Homes builds energy-efficient apartments, schools, remote camps, and hundreds of homes every year.
Once completed, their housing units are shipped as far west as Manitoba and north to Nunavut.
You are demonstrating once again that Canadian manufacturers can be leaders in quality and craftsmanship. Congratulations on what you have built and all that you will continue to build.
Canada’s new government is deploying a similar combination of innovation with speed through Build Canada Homes.
Build Canada Homes leverages public lands, large portfolio projects, and highly competitive financing to help scale a new factory-built housing industry that can build millions of affordable homes.
An industry that can cut building times by 50%, reduce costs by 20%, and lower emissions by 20%.
Canada’s history is one of adventurers, risk takers, and, above all, builders.
Our country was forged by Indigenous Peoples and voyageurs who built vast trading networks from coast to coast to coast before the Americans had even left St. Louis.
Following the Second World War, Canada was ambitious, determined, and united in a mission to build big things that would include the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Trans-Canada Highway, Expo ’67, and the CN Tower.
Canadians built new neighbourhoods for hundreds of thousands of returning veterans. And our universities, such as UNB, saw their enrolment almost double.
At this hinge moment, it is this history as builders that we need to return to, and that we need to encourage.
Because Canada faces a hinge moment.
The world is more dangerous and divided.
The global trading system is being rewired, threatening Canadian jobs and businesses.
The Budget estimates that U.S. tariffs and the associated uncertainty will cost Canadians around 1.8% of our GDP.
That’s about $50 billion lost from our economy, the equivalent of $1,300 for every Canadian.
This is a rupture, not a transition, and it means that our economic strategy needs to change dramatically and rapidly.
That new strategy is at the core of Canada’s new federal budget released last week.
The Budget builds Canada strong by unleashing over $1 trillion dollars in total investments over the next five years.
That alone will increase our GDP by over 3.5% – that’s $3,500 for every Canadian worker, more than twice what’s being taken from us.
And we are just getting started.
Budget 2025 is the new economic strategy that Canada needs to meet this challenge and emerge even stronger.
A Canada that is confident and taking its future into its own hands.
To get there, we must tackle long-standing economic pressures that go beyond tariffs.
Our budget makes generational investments to build at home, including right here in New Brunswick.
Budget 2025 includes the new $5 billion Trade Diversification Corridors Fund, which will improve Canada’s access to international markets by investing in new port, airport, and railway infrastructure.
That can mean projects such as the Saint John Trade Corridor and critical minerals at the Port of Belledune.
We’re building one Canadian economy turbo-charged by new infrastructure that connects our regions, diversifies our markets, makes us an energy superpower, restores affordability to housing, and secures our communities.
We are creating new strategies – from critical minerals to high-speed rail and a sovereign cloud – to drive tens of billions of dollars in further investments, while creating the conditions for a better connected, more productive economy.
Our new Defence Industrial Strategy will help leverage the over $80 billion increase in defence spending over the next five years to build Canadian industry.
Our Climate Competitiveness Strategy will help drive hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in nuclear, hydro, wind, storage and grid infrastructure to position Canada to lead in the low-carbon economy.
We will build local infrastructure, including hospitals, transit, recreation spaces, and arts centres, through the $50 billion Build Communities Strong Fund.
This includes new funding to build Place Marcel-François-Richard, a gathering place to celebrate Acadian culture on the site of the giant Acadian flag in Beaurivage, New Brunswick.
It’s not just what we build – it’s also how we build.
We will build inclusively, in full partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis.
We will build in solidarity with workers, creating good union jobs.
We will build sustainably – because reducing emissions is not just a moral duty, it’s an economic imperative.
Above all, we will build Canadian by becoming our own best customer.
With our new Buy Canadian Policy, whenever the federal government spends, we will select Canadian suppliers by default, rather than the current “best efforts” approach.
This new approach will extend to all federal agencies and Crown corporations, such as Build Canada Homes, Alto High-Speed Rail, and our new Defence Investment Agency.
Our Buy Canadian Policy will include federal infrastructure spending, ensuring that as much as possible of the $70 billion we are planning to invest in the roads, bridges, and community centres Canadians rely on, come from Canadian-made suppliers.
And when domestic suppliers are not available, purchases will be required to include Canadian content or be sourced from trusted partners. Such cases will become the exception, not the norm, and will require ministerial approval.
To be considered a Canadian supplier, companies will have to have a physical presence in Canada and in Canadian supply chains – not just a shell company.
Being our own best customer will put more of every public dollar back into our economy, creating Canadian careers, using Canadian resources, and benefiting Canadian communities.
It will make a big difference for workers here in New Brunswick – including at businesses like Maple Leaf Homes.
When an order is placed for steel, lumber, or heavy machinery, it will go to businesses in Saskatoon, Trois-Rivières, and Fredericton.
It will turn these new orders for homes, buildings, and defence equipment into contracts, careers, and better wages for Canadian workers.
We are also launching a new Procurement Program to provide specialised, streamlined support for Canadian small and medium-sized businesses trying to break into the federal market.
This will improve competition for federal contracts, strengthen local supply chains, and build our industries – from construction to energy, technology and clean manufacturing.
We will give our businesses the confidence they need to invest in their development and growth.
We will be our own best customer so that new welding and engineering graduates have high-quality careers waiting for them here in Canada.
Canada’s new government is making this announcement, but it is part of a larger movement that every Canadian, in their own way, is driving forward.
Canadians who have been buying more local wines, like in Québec, where sales of local wine rose by nearly 60% between April and August.
Our government removed federal barriers to internal trade earlier this year, and the provincial and territorial premiers have started removing their barriers as well.
This will unlock billions more dollars in trade within our borders.
Our Buy Canadian strategy is part of a larger movement amongst Canadian businesses that is putting Maple Leaf stickers on grocery aisles, increasing sales and coupons for Canadian-made products, and choosing Canadian suppliers for new contracts.
One implication of the Buy Canadian movement is that we need a more unified economy than ever. So, the federal government is leading the effort to remove internal trade barriers so Canadian products and services can flow easily across the country.
Our plan is ambitious and bold. It is exactly what our country needs, and we will do what needs to be done.
There are two potential responses to the challenges Canada faces.
We can stick to plans designed for the old world. Hunker down, slash the deficit, and wait for the “trickle down”.
That would mean getting rid of our key social programs, or eliminating all health, education, and social transfers to provinces and territories, while not investing in what we need now.
Or we can invest as boldly in our future as Canadians have done in the past.
We choose Canada.
We are masters of our own house, and we will build a country that is greater and stronger than ever.
And we will do it with Canadian lumber, Canadian steel, and Canadian aluminum.
This is our country. This is your future. With Budget 2025, we are taking back control to build Canada strong.
With Budget 2025, we will buy Canadian, build New Brunswick strong, and build Canada strong.
Thank you, and long live Canada.