Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Julie, for your work and that of Nathalie and Joanne. Nathalie Provost, Joanne Thompson, and all the teams represented here today. You have made this historic and vital day possible. It’s great to have the backdrop of Gatineau Park, a jewel of Quebec and of Canada’s National Capital Region.

Our country is blessed by an incredible natural heritage. From the rugged Atlantic shores to the towering peaks of the Rockies, from the sweeping Prairies to the Boreal Forest, from the Arctic to the sprawling mountains of British Columbia, nature is at the heart of Canada. It is at the heart of our identity. Nature strengthens our sovereignty. It supports our economy. It sustains our lives and livelihoods.

We are in a province where this reality is deeply felt. Where the landscape shapes the culture, the language, and everyday life. Just like the rivers that flow into the St. Lawrence, which serve as waterways and vital arteries for ecosystems. As Canadians, nature is in our nature. Our natural environment makes us unique in the world. Our lands stretch out to form the second-largest country in the world, bordered by the world’s longest coastline.

Canada's home to 20% of the world's freshwater, 25% of the world's wetlands, almost a quarter of the world's Boreal Forest, more than 80,000 species, from the iconic polar bears, beavers, Canada geese, to the unique eastern wolf, Vancouver Island marmot, and the Peary caribou. Nature is also an asset that provides the flow of goods and services over time. These ecosystem services make nature our greatest ally in the fight against climate change. They help mitigate and reduce the severity of climate disasters. Wetlands absorb carbon and they absorb excess rainfall. Forests prevent erosion and floods. Healthy ecosystems reduce the impacts of severe weather that can damage our communities. While protecting us, nature also provides for us, including the very building blocks of life, food, clean water, materials for shelter, and our ecosystems provide massive economic benefits for Canadians. One example, the sites managed by Parks Canada alone contribute over $4 billion to Canada's GDP and they employ over 37,000 Canadians.

When we fail to protect nature, we are not making a sound economic choice. We are making a choice that works against us.

Now, the very scale of Canada's natural heritage makes our choices consequential for the entire world, and Canada has been a world leader in protecting global nature. Some of you, those behind me, those in front of me, those watching, were at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal in 2022 where Canada helped secure a landmark agreement to halt and reverse global nature loss, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. As part of it, we and others committed to one of the world's biggest conservation goals, protecting 30% of our lands and waters by the end of this decade, by 2030. This included a commitment to identify critical areas for our biodiversity and ecosystems, and by conserving these habitats, helping to limit the effects of climate change.

For a country as vast as ours, protecting 30% of our land and water is an ambitious goal. It is a goal that our government is determined to achieve. To that end, today we are launching A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature.

Today, we're launching a force of nature, Canada's strategy to protect nature. This is an ambitious new plan that invests $3.8 billion of new funds across three pillars, protecting nature, building Canada well, and valuing nature and mobilizing capital. Nature is a force for our well-being. When we're protecting nature, we're protecting Canadians, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the rivers we swim in. That's why today, we are putting in place enduring mechanisms to achieve that goal of protecting 30% of our lands and waters by 2030. To get there, we're moving forward with a comprehensive approach. We’ll create new national parks and marine conservation sites, new national urban parks, everything that Julie got into politics for and more, and new so-called other effective area-based conservation measures, which are sites where the land and water can be conserved while allowing some other activities. Creating these spaces is ambitious. It requires significant funding and we know we can't do it with just public money alone. That's why we'll work with the private sector to catalyze investments and preserve our lands and waters.

Now, we're starting investing in our existing national parks to safeguard the extraordinary sites so they can be experienced for generations to come. We all have our connections just outside of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories where I was born, Wood Buffalo National Park has made the preservation of the bison and the whooping crane possible, both endangered species when I was born. When I was growing up in Edmonton, I made lasting memories in Jasper National Park, just as my kids did here in Gatineau Park. So, creating new parks and making all parks more accessible will help every Canadian experience the beauty of our great nation as I have. That's one of the reasons, one of many, why we renewed the Canada Strong Pass for this summer, so Canadians can visit all our national parks for free, and it's why we're moving forward immediately on two new conservation sites. The first is the Wiinipaawk Indigenous Protected Area and National Marine Conservation Area in eastern James Bay off Quebec, and the second is the Seal River Watershed National Park in Manitoba.

The Wiinipaawk Indigenous Protected Area and National Marine Conservation Area will protect a vital region that supports Indigenous communities and is home to Canada’s great northern species, including polar bears and belugas.

The Seal River Watershed National Park will help protect the world's largest intact watershed, think about that, the world's largest intact watershed, providing natural carbon storage, water filtration, flood protection, while preserving the habitat for polar bears, caribou, and other iconic Canadian wildlife. It's a good day to be a polar bear in Canada.

Often, when we talk about conservation, we mean setting land aside and restricting most of the activity on it. We have to find ways to conserve lands and waters while permitting activity that doesn’t threaten them. We are achieving this through Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures. These are lands and waters that we can conserve while allowing other activity. An example of this is Canadian Forces Base Shilo, in southwestern Manitoba. Parts of the land are actively used by the Armed Forces, while others remain undisturbed, protecting vital ecosystems. We’re looking at other areas where we can do the same to conserve nature in a practical way without taking land out of use entirely. As Julie said, partnership is at the heart of our plan. Indigenous peoples have a deep, historic understanding of the environment. We will work in partnership with Indigenous communities to implement this strategy. We will work together with conservation organizations, drawing on their expertise in ecosystem protection. We will work together with the provinces and territories to optimise our conservation efforts at the national level.

Right now, today, about 14% of our land is protected, and through these new parks and conservation areas, we will add an additional 16% by 2030, achieving fully our 30% goal.

It’s a big day. And as we protect our land, we will protect our waters. We're establishing up to 14 new marine-protected areas and conserved areas and up to 10 new national marine conservation areas. Two of these areas are in the Arctic. The Sarvarjuaq and Qikiqtait marine-protected areas. Together, they’ll help protect the habitats of species that are central to Arctic ecosystems, walruses, belugas, and you guessed it, polar bears. In total, these new conservation areas will add over 12%, bringing us towards our 30% target for marine-protected areas and about 28% of protected waters once complete. So, we've got work to do to close that gap and we will close that gap. To restore our waters, we're also removing one of the deadliest forms of marine pollution, ghost gear, that’s gear abandoned and discarded fishing gear that harms marine mammals and seabirds, and I heard about this on the wharf in West Pubnico on Friday, the importance of extending this, and I knew that Minister Thompson had stood up. We're extending the Ghost Gear Fund, which has already removed over 2,500 tonnes of fishing equipment from Canada's waters since 2020. We're investing, as a government, in existing efforts that deliver the best results, like the Pacific Salmon Strategy which protects this vital lifeblood of ecosystems on the West Coast, and we're investing in Canada's Atlantic Salmon Strategy to stabilize and then rebuild wild salmon populations.

A strong and resilient economy depends on healthy ecosystems. Balancing nature conservation with development has two advantages.

It stimulates growth while also protecting the natural environment, which is the foundation of our economy. Our government is tirelessly committed to building a new economy built on major infrastructure projects. We will build sustainably, while preserving our natural environment. Because a country’s strength depends on the health of its land and the quality of its water. Nature is a driving force for our economy thanks to the vitality of its ecosystems. We must adopt construction methods that support our conservation efforts, while creating and protecting nature and wildlife preserves.

Through more comprehensive mapping of our nature, which is part of this plan, we'll have a better understanding of the biodiversity and carbon sequestration capacity across Canada. That improved mapping will create predictable pathways for project approvals and catalyze investment in conservation. Nature can be a force for good that mobilizes private capital, that protects the environment. I know this from my work as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, when the private sector incorporates reducing emissions and protecting nature in their value chains, they have greater incentives to invest. They’re more motivated to reduce practices that result in habitat loss and pollution.

In Canada and around the world, innovative financing models are emerging to help direct private investment toward protecting nature. To capitalise on these tools, we will launch an expert task force on natural capital accounting and nature-protection financing. The task force will identify how we measure nature’s value and explore pathways to treat it as an asset worth protecting. An asset we cannot live without. When we track the condition of our ecosystems with the same rigour we bring to tracking economic and financial performance, we create a foundation for investment decisions that protect ecosystems.

Our national identity is rooted in our country's magnificent diverse landscapes, like the one behind us. As the Saugeen Ojibway Nation poet Elder Dr. Duke Redbird observed, the spirit of the people is equal to the power of the land.

What we have inherited as Canadians is extraordinary. But in return, we have a responsibility – a great responsibility – to protect what we have. To be the caretakers of the lands and waters we revel in. This is a responsibility that Canada’s new government is acting on with focus and determination.