Good evening. Konbanwa.
Prime Minister Takaichi, thank you for your gracious hospitality.
It is a pleasure to return to Tokyo and it is an honour to return in my capacity as Prime Minister.
This is the first bilateral visit by a Canadian Prime Minister to Japan in 10 years.
Kyo wa, Takaichi Söri Daijin to aete,
ureshiku omoimasu.
Nikka kankei ga masu masu tsuyoku naru
koto o negat-te imasu.
As I said – gracious hospitality. Thank you, Sanae. I would like to begin by congratulating you on your decisive electoral victory. A grand slam worthy of the Hanshin Tigers.
We in Canada are hoping for similar results from our newest Toronto Blue Jay, Kazuma Okamoto. I will be taking notes.
After all, Canada and Japan have learned from each other as we’ve grown together for over a century.
Our relationship is vibrant and dynamic.
Relations between Canada and Japan are rich and varied. We have sustained cultural exchanges. Our trade relationship is substantial and promising.
With the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, our businesses and workers benefit from free trade between our countries.
We are key partners in security.
Canada and Japan are close economic, security and G7 partners. Our Armed Forces patrol the Asia-Pacific together. Two-way trade is over $40 billion. Japan is one of Canada's largest investors, with nearly three quarters of the vehicles manufactured in Canada made by Japanese companies, and over 10% of the food imported into Japan comes from Canada.
We do much, but we're ready to do much more. That's a common theme of our governments. My government was elected with a clear mandate to build boldly with a speed not seen in generations. And we're acting.
We've cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and housing. We have a super deduction in place for write offs of all investment. A host of clean energy tax credits for catalysing $1 trillion in investment over the next five years in energy, artificial intelligence (AI), ports, and new trade corridors.
We are doubling government investment in defence-related R&D for next generation capabilities in AI, quantum robotics and autonomous systems. And we discussed some of this in our meeting.
Our Defence Industrial Strategy will unleash over half a trillion dollars in investment over the next decade.
As the Prime Minister mentioned, our partnership has six priority areas. First, most importantly, and fundamentally, we are enhancing our security and defence cooperation through information sharing, technology transfers, cooperation in maritime security, and establishing a new cyber policy dialogue, so we can rapidly detect and deter cyber attacks.
Secondly, we are strengthening our economic security with robust supply chains and strategic technologies – consistent, Prime Minister, with the insights of your book, what you've long argued about the importance of strategic economic sectors. That means reliable access in space-based communications, semiconductors, rare earths, SMRs, fusion, clean energy technology, AI and sovereign cloud.
As part of this, we're expanding our existing cooperation within the G7 Critical Minerals Alliance to secure reliable stockpiles and build our processing capacity.
The third priority is to strengthen our already significant trade and investment relationship to a new level, and that's close collaboration to connect the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union trading bloc, something we'll discuss this evening.
It’s having trade missions such as the Team Canada mission that will be coming here in the next few months and is having discussions, as I will have tomorrow, with CEOs of Japan's most important companies, to discuss new investment opportunities in both of our economies.
Fourth, we're building energy and food security. The Prime Minister and I have directed our officials to identify opportunities to collaborate in LNG, in nuclear technologies, in hydrogen, as well as other clean tech technologies.
Canada is in a position where we can double our LNG exports by the end of this decade, and double again by the end of the following decade. We already export $6 billion in agrifood and seafood products to Japan and we can do much more.
Fifth, we're expanding our cooperation on the Arctic and climate, strengthening our scientific and technological collaboration, and supporting innovation in net-zero industrial processes and clean power generation.
And finally, most fundamentally, the new Canada-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership will expand people-to-people exchanges, academic and cultural exchanges, from scholarships to new youth mobility cooperation mechanisms and beyond.
This progress builds on the longstanding ties between our peoples.
Nearly 130,000 Canadians of Japanese descent live in Canada.
More than half a million Canadians travel to Japan each year.
We have much in common, and we are enriched by each other’s cultures, perspectives, and histories. This is a strong foundation on which we can build something even better, more prosperous, more ambitious.
With the international community at a turning point in history, we are renewing our commitment to work together to address key challenges and to pursue shared strategic interests.
Prime Minister, as you know, there is a Japanese proverb that articulates the opportunity ahead of us in these difficult times: Ame futte ji katamaru.
After the rain, the ground grows firmer.
Adversity tests our strength and builds it. Today we take our first steps on firmer ground together.
Soshite asu no
otanjöbi no mae ni, Canada to Nihon no
atarashii kankei o
tomoni sutäto deki, totemo ureshiku omoimasu.
Thank you. Arigatou gozaimashita.