Hello, everyone. Today, I took part in the Americas Partnership Leaders’ Summit in Washington, which brought together 12 countries from the western hemisphere and was organized by President Biden. And I will come back to my meeting with President Biden in a few moments.

During the APEP summit today, we talked about the economy, climate action, the geopolitical context in the world right now, and the importance of democracy. During these turbulent times, it is more important than ever to work with close partners in the hemisphere to strengthen our supply chains, protect ourselves from the impacts of climate change, and ensure stability, which is essential to prosperity.

For example, earlier this year, to help build climate resilience, Canada partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank Group and committed $5 million to promote the use of nature-based solutions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Another way to ensure stability is to create good jobs in each of our countries, including for members of marginalized communities. This will be the objective of the Americas Partnership Accelerator Initiative that we will establish with the United Stated and Uruguay to support entrepreneurs from these communities.

To promote stability, we also need to help the millions of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since June, Canada has continued to welcome record numbers of migrants and refugees from the western hemisphere, and we are committed to helping migrant-hosting communities on the ground, too, by investing towards better access to clean water, education, and other basic necessities.

As I said earlier, we must continue to promote stability, because a more stable world means more security and prosperity for all. And that is why we are here today, and that is why we will continue to work closely with all of our partners in the Americas.

All of the leaders are clearly monitoring the situation in the Middle East, and we had many conversations about it.

Before the summit started today, I met with President Biden to discuss a range of issues. There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and the relationship between Canada and the United States is very important on how we engage with all these issues. Of course, we talked about the Middle East and Hamas’s terrorist attack. We’ve all seen too much horror these last weeks: kids being killed, pregnant women needing care, communities devastated. You don’t need me to describe the horror because we’re seeing it every night, every time we open social media. We all want it to stop. We need a humanitarian pause.

But let me repeat what needs to happen, and what needs to happen now. First, all the hostages need to be released. We need much more aid going to the Palestinian people, and we need innocent civilians to be protected in Gaza and, increasingly, in the West Bank, including from extremist settlers. On the issue of Canadians and their families in Gaza, we were encouraged by the assurances that Minister Joly received from Israel and from Egypt that Canadians and their families will be able to leave Gaza in the coming days. We will not stop until all Canadians are brought out to safety.

We will continue working with our partners in the region and elsewhere in the world, including here, of course, in the United States.

Thank you for being here today.