SOPHIE GRÉGOIRE-TRUDEAU: Oh my goodness, what an honour for us it is to be here on a WE Day stage again with my hubby.  Woohoo!  Amazing, amazing!  Listen, it’s such an honour for us to be here today and there’s so much we would like to share with you.  But I really want to say…I really want to say that you’re going to hear so many inspirational stories today that could change your life.  And we all go through hardships.

Everyone goes through difficult times in their lives. And when I was young, I had eating disorders and I suffered.                                       

And as a young kid, as a teenager I suffered myself with eating disorders.  And today we’re here to hear…today we’re here to really share stories that can inspire us and so many people that have gone through adversity and come out of adversity with so much strength and courage and humility.

And here is what I would like to share with you today.

Ask yourself the question: how are you when you are alone with yourself and nobody else in the world is watching?  How do you treat yourself?  With respect, with love, with courage?

When you are along with yourself and no else is watching you, how do you treat yourself? How do you feel?                       

The way you treat yourself when you’re alone and nobody’s watching is the way that you can transform the relationship that you have with yourself but also with every other person that’s around you in this world and your capacity to affect change.

So with all my love as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, I encourage you to really, really foster so much respect and love for yourselves because you’re all amazing human beings!  Woo!

And by doing that, by doing that and by loving who you are, for who you are, you’re making everything else possible.  And let me tell you, beside me right now stands a man that I love deeply who also believes, yes, who also believes that in Canada and everywhere across the world, especially in a country like ours, better is always possible.

My husband and your 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.

(Crowd cheers)

RIGHT HONOURABLE JUSTIN TRUDEAU (Prime Minister of Canada): Thank you!  Merci, Sophie.  Thank you, WE Day, for this warm welcome!

(Crowd cheers)

You know, this is my fourth WE Day and I want to start by reminding you of something that each of you deeply know and was something that I said at my very first WE Day, which is in an event like this you’ll have a lot of people coming up on stage and talking about the future and talking about how you are the future and how you are all leaders of tomorrow.

But I don’t want you guys to think about yourselves as leaders of tomorrow.  WE Day is not about you becoming leaders of tomorrow.  This is about you being leaders today!

(Crowd cheers)

Because what you do, what you say, the choices you make, how you reach out to your classmates, to your friends, to your family, how you look to have an impact in the world around you, how you shape the world, the community that you’re growing up in, that is the leadership that you are showing right now.  

And whether it’s on the environment, or on local issues, or on helping out a neighbour or a friend, you are making an impact.  And the big challenge that we’re facing and that our friends Craig and Marc have done such an incredible job with over the past years is showing you that each and every one of us is powerful.  You don’t have to wait until one of you in this room--and I know at least one of you out there--becomes Prime Minister to make a difference.

(Crowd cheers)

Every day, the actions you take, how you engage in your community with your friends, this makes a difference, this has a powerful impact.                

We’re in a world right now where it’s so easy to feel like one person can’t make much of a difference, where everything seems so big and so beyond each and every one of us that it doesn’t really matter what we choose to do as one person, or not do.

But that’s not true. WE Day is about showing you that we is powerful, that me as part of we is powerful and that together we can and will change the world.  That’s what this is about.

(Crowd cheers)

So today, you’ll get inspired and I know that this is a change. It’s so much fun to be here with lots of friends, with great performances, with people who will inspire you. But the big challenge will be to continue throughout the year with the same intention and energy you have today.        

How you keep this positive energy going throughout the coming weeks and years, how you know that what you do, what you say matters deeply to the kind of world you want to build, that is how we will change the world.

Thank you very much, everyone.  Thank you very, very much!

(Crowd cheers)

CROWD: Trudeau, Trudeau, Trudeau, Trudeau, Trudeau.

RT HON JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada!

SOPHIE GRÉGOIRE TRUDEAU: Canada, Canada!

RT HON JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Thank you, everyone!