Good afternoon everyone, hello everyone. Just as I begin, I’d like to welcome Ron Bedard, the President and CEO of Dofasco, thank you Ron for coming here today. More substantively, thank you for leading one of Canada’s great steel companies, but also for helping us in designing some of these support measures that I’m going to talk about today, and some of that we have put in place.

This is an important day for Canada’s workers; we know the world is changing, we know that this decades-long process of our ever-closer economic relationship between Canada and the United States has ended, and as a consequence of that, many of our strengths have become have become our vulnerabilities, particularly in those industries that are most tightly integrated with the United States. Headline last year, 75% of our exports went to the U.S., 90% of our lumber exports went to the U.S., nine zero percent, 90% of our aluminum exports went to the United States, 90% of our steel exports went there, all bound for a single market. That has changed. Overall, for the Canadian economy, we estimate that U.S. tariffs and the uncertainty that they’re creating will cost Canadians around 1.8% of GDP, that’s about 50 billion dollars lost from our economy, or the equivalent of $1,300 for every Canadian, and this is happening fast. It’s a rupture, which means that our economic strategy needs to change dramatically and rapidly. And that change is in Budget 2025. Our plan to confront these challenges that emerge even stronger. To move our economy from reliance to resilience, and to give ourselves far more than any foreign nation can ever take away. 

This Budget is about building Canada strong by focusing on what we can control: building at home to protect and empower Canadians, boosting our productivity to drive lasting prosperity, transforming how government works for you, and diversifying our trade partners abroad to create more opportunity and greater independence. 

The core of this strategy and budget 2025 is to unleash one trillion dollars in total investments in Canada over the course of the next five years. That alone will increase our GDP by over 3.5%, or $3,500 for every Canadian worker, more than twice what’s being taken from us. Now, to help get there, we must protect our workers and our industries who are most exposed to U.S. tariffs. That means in steel, aluminum, auto, and lumber sectors. Help them bridge to the future. 

We have already taken decisive action to limit foreign steel exports, become our own best customer by buying Canadian, enable our strategic industries to diversify and secure new markets, and protect our workers and industries affected by U.S. tariffs.

Back in July, we restricted foreign steel imports entering Canada’s market, expanded training and income support for steel workers and provided liquidity relief for businesses. The government, for example, provided a 400-million-dollar loan to help Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie to transition to a business model that’s less reliant on the United States. In August, we introduced new measures to help the softwood lumber industry stay competitive, including financing for company restructuring, investments to diversify products, income and training supports for affected workers, and prioritizing Canadian lumber in home building. In September, we launched a comprehensive industrial strategy with new reskilling programs, a new 5-billion-dollar strategic response fund to help businesses pivot to new markets, and we announced that we would create a new buy-Canadian policy across federal agencies. We also reduced red tape and increased loan limits to help large firms access the liquidity that they need. These measures are working; we’ve received close to 1,500 applications from companies across the steel, aluminum, lumber manufacturing, automotive and seafood sectors, through our regional tariff response initiative. In the steel sector alone, more than 230 firms have applied, and supports are already being delivered. So, some examples, because of these initiatives, Cherubini Metal Works in Nova Scotia is modernizing its metal and fabrication lines to export more products overseas. And Hooper Welding in Hamilton will grow its capacity to produce fabrication equipment required for Canadian and international energy projects. 

Thanks to this targeted funding, Canadian companies are integrating new technologies, launching new products to diversify markets, securing roles in domestic supply chains, and through these upgrades, participating in trade missions worldwide. 

Our investments are also protecting workers; providing relief to nearly 37,000 Canadians during this period of uncertainty. So far, they’ve prevented more than 14,000 Canadians from losing their job. More broadly, across our economy, employment is rebounding after the early impacts of the trade war. More than 120,000 total jobs have been created since March. What we’re doing today is to reinforce that momentum with new strength and measures to accelerate the transformation of the Canadian steel and lumber industries, to build strong domestic demand for their products, and to empower their workers and businesses to seize new markets at home and abroad. So these new measures focus on three core objectives; first, to further limit foreign steel imports so as to increase domestic demand for Canadian steel producers. Second, to make it easier to buy and build with Canadian steel and lumber. And third, to invest in workers and businesses so that they have the tools and the resources that they need to drive this industrial transformation. So, let me start with limiting foreign steel imports, to ensure that our steel producers have a bigger share of our market. Doing so will unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in domestic demand for those producers. We will reduce tariff-free steel imports from non-free-trade area partners, from 50% of 2024 levels as it is today, to 20% of those levels. This will open up more than 850 million dollars in new domestic demand for Canadian steel. Second, we will reduce tariff-free steel imports from non-CUSMA, non-CUSMA free-trade area partners from 100% of 2024 levels to 75% of those levels, unlocking more than 540 million dollars in additional market access for our producers. We’ll impose a global 25% tariff on targeted imported steel derivative products such as wind towers, prefabricated buildings, fasteners and wires, to grow demand for Canadian-made steel. Those products as a whole represent about a 10-billion-dollar market.

And we will toughen our broader compliance measures to prevent foreign steel dumping; to do so, the Canadian Border Service Agency will be equipped with a dedicated steel compliance team, enhanced detection of false declarations, and expanded online reporting tools. Our temporary horizontal remission of Canadian tariffs on imports has helped Canadian businesses deal with the early impacts of those tariffs. However, over the longer term, such broad remissions would only hurt Canada’s steel sector, so to move away from relying on imported steel, and to give Canadian companies time to adjust their supply chains to use Canadian steel, those temporary remission measures will end on January 31st, 2026 for steel used in Canada for manufacturing, food and beverage packaging, and agricultural production. Now, the second broad way to drive transformation of our strategic industries is by becoming our own best customer; so we’ll build big with Canadian suppliers, investing in roads, bridges, homes, and community centres. A bit later this year, we’ll implement that buy-Canadian policy which will ensure that Canadian materials including steel and lumber are prioritized in all contracts over 25 million dollars, and that this applies across federal grants and contribution programs, especially those in infrastructure. To maximize the use of Canadian softwood lumber in housing and infrastructure, we will prioritize shovel-ready, multi-year projects that can begin in the next 12 months using, of course, Canadian wood. With the funding allocation of roughly 700 million dollars next year, Build Canada Homes, our new federal home-building agency, this alone will create 70 to 140 million dollars of new demand for Canadian wood products, and attract private and provincial capital to multiply that impact.

In order to build on that, I’m announcing today that we will make it more affordable to transport Canadian steel and lumber across this country by cutting freight rates for transporting steel and lumber inter-provincially by 50%. We’ll do that through funding directly Canadian National, and Canadian Pacific Kansas City railways. And finally, we will increase protections for Canadian steel and lumber workers and those businesses so that they can adapt and seize new opportunities. We’ll help employers retain workers by expanding our earlier supports, and enhancing our work sharing programs, increasing income replacement ratios, income replacement benefits from 55% to 70%. We will also provide an additional 500 million dollars to the business-development bank of Canada’s softwood lumber guarantee program to ensure that companies have the financing and the credit support that they need to maintain and restructure their operations during this period of transformation. And similarly, we will deploy 500 million dollars in funding under the large enterprise tariff loan facility, specifically for softwood lumber firms, the larger ones facing liquidity pressures. We’ll make it easier for the forestry sector to access federal support by establishing a single-window for applications, a one-stop shop to help companies navigate a broad sweep of support programs. And lastly, we will launch a Canadian forest sector transformation taskforce that seeks input and recommendations from provinces, territories, and industry on how to seize new opportunities in softwood lumber, and create new growth in the sector. 

These support measures, combined with those implemented earlier this year, will give Canadian steel and lumber producers access to domestic markets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, it’s more than $1 billion. They will create new opportunities for workers as domestic demand increases and provide businesses with the support they need to adapt to the changing global environment. We’re making sure that Canadian steel and lumber companies have the capital, talent, and time they need to acquire the skills, tools, and facilities that will enable them to help build a strong Canadian economy.

The hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure and housing investments that budget 2025 will unleash will create significant demand for Canadian steel and lumber, as will our new trade and investment partnerships around the world. Last week I was in Abu Dabi where the UAE announced their decision to invest 70 billion dollars in Canada. In Johannesburg for the G20 we launched discussions towards a Canada-South Africa foreign investment promotion and partnership agreement, that will deepen investment between our two nations; and we agreed to launch comprehensive free trade talks with India, the world’s fifth largest economy.

We have begun trade negotiations with the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and Thailand, and we are working to finalize our agreement with ASEAN. This is in addition to the agreements our government has already concluded with Indonesia, Ecuador, the European Union, and Germany. Countries around the world want to invest in Canada and build with us. We are making the strategic investments necessary to produce and export more of what the world needs, like Canadian steel and Canadian lumber.

The Canadian steel and lumber industries will always be at the heart of Canada’s competitiveness, our security, and our strength. These are sectors that reflect our country’s character, resilient and forward-looking, with a history of reinventing themselves at pivotal moments.

And at this pivotal moment in our history, Canada is moving from reliance to resilience. We can give ourselves much more than any foreign government could ever take away. We are building a single Canadian economy, instead of 13. We are working together on projects of national interest. We are making unprecedented investments in our defence and security, and we are diversifying our trade relationships. 

We will build Canada strong with the workers and the resources that build our communities strong. Canadian workers, Canadian steel and lumber, with them we’ll build Hamilton Strong, Sault Ste. Marie strong, Saguenay strong, Miramichi strong, for a Canada strong, Canada strong. Thank you.

Thank you, I look forward to your questions.