Good morning.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming.

And I’ll just say thank you to all of my colleagues from Canada who’ve come to South Africa for the G20. I also want to begin by thanking President Ramaphosa for his leadership; his leadership in hosting the first G20 Leaders’ Summit in Africa, as well as his generous hospitality and that of his team.

Now, when President Ramaphosa attended the G7 in Kananaskis back in June, we discussed our shared priorities for Canada’s G7 presidency and South Africa’s G20. And even though Canada and South Africa are separated by long physical distances, we’re bound by deep historical ties, by enduring friendship, and a promising future together.

I just want to recall our prime minister, Brian Mulroney, standing in solidarity with South Africans in their struggle for freedom, leading by imposing sanctions and advocating for an end to apartheid. When South Africa emerged as a democracy, Canada was amongst the first nations to engage as their partner. Canadian judges and lawyers shared lessons from our own experience with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as South Africans wrote theirs. And that legacy of cooperation continues today: our firefighters, on both sides, are deployed across oceans when wildfires rage, as they do all too frequently; our scientists collaborate in agriculture, artificial intelligence, and clean technology; our entrepreneurs are building partnerships that stretch from Cape Town to Calgary. And it’s that spirit of cooperation that has underpinned our work at this Summit.

Two decades ago, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, Canada’s then-finance minister Paul Martin helped to design the G20. His argument at the time was that the world’s most significant economies, both advanced and emerging, should meet regularly to strengthen financial stability and global governance. The G20’s mission was to bring together the global north and south, to ensure that fast-growing economies such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa had their seat at the table, and to make an increasingly interconnected global economy work for everyone. While that mission endures, the assumptions beneath it have been transformed; this G20 meeting takes place in a very different world. For generations, middle powers, like Canada, have benefited from a rules-based, multilateral trading system, and an open global financial order. Our geography gave us privileged access to the world’s largest economy and distanced us from many of the world’s threats.

And now, the United States’ economic strategy has changed from multilateralism to a bilateral, more targeted approach, and the multilateral institutions on which middle powers like Canada have long relied, from the WTO to the UN, are buckling under the weight of this new era. This is not a transition but a rupture, and inside every rupture is the responsibility of building a new start. We know that nostalgia is not a strategy. We cannot rebuild the world of the past; we are building something better.

This year’s G20 Summit brought together nations representing three quarters of the world’s population, two thirds of global GDP, and three quarters of the world’s trade. And that’s without the United States formally attending. It’s a reminder that the centre of gravity in the global economy is shifting. The last century was defined by concentration of capital, production, and power. The next one will be defined by diffusion of technology, of energy, and influence. By the rise of the global south and new roles for middle powers like Canada, to multilateral arrangements that work for all. Our task is to ensure that Canada doesn’t only endure this shift, but that we prosper under it, and that demands a new economic strategy. It’s why Canada is signing new deals with new partners, diversifying our trade, and attracting billions of dollars of new investment into our country. Under South Africa’s presidency, this G20 is focused on solidarity, equality, and sustainability, priorities that Canada strongly supports. And these values define how Canada is building now; we’re building inclusively, in full partnership with First Nations, the Inuit, and the Métis. We’re building in solidarity with workers, creating good union jobs. We’re building sustainably because reducing emissions is not just a moral duty, it’s an economic imperative. And we’re aligning our approach to our strengths in clean energy, critical minerals, and infrastructure.

On Monday, just before we left for this visit to the United Arab Emirates, our first federal budget was adopted. This budget includes an ambitious plan to unlock a trillion dollars in new investments over the next five years, and part of that plan is to double our exports to markets other than the United States, which could generate $300 billion in new trade over the next decade. To achieve this ambition, we are diversifying our trade and reaching new agreements with new partners and investors. We are building big, and we are building so everyone profits.

At a time when too many countries are retreating into geopolitical blocks, or the battle grounds of protectionism, Canada believes that the G20 must remain a bridge. At this year’s summit, we’ve deepened our partnerships; while in South Africa, we’ve announced the opening of FINDEV, Canada’s new office in Cape Town. This office will finance sustainable development projects and connect Canadian firms to new opportunities across Africa. Canada and South Africa have also just agreed to launch discussions on a new foreign investment protection agreement, which will catalyse even greater private sector engagement in the infrastructure, clean energy, and minerals space in this country. We have advanced work on a critical minerals production alliance, building on the G7’s standard base markets roadmap, and we’ve secured South Africa’s agreement to continue those discussions toward greater cooperation on the sourcing – responsible sourcing – of those minerals and investor protections.

In the last three days, I’ve also held several bilateral meetings. Canada’s re-engaging pragmatically with global giants: India and China. Yesterday, Canada, India, and Australia formed a new trilateral partnership on technology and innovation, which will accelerate our cooperation on critical and emerging technologies. A partnership that will draw on our strengths and focus on clean energy, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence to unlock more opportunities for Canadian workers and businesses. Prime Minister Modi and I are meeting later today to discuss our broader trade relationship. Yesterday, Canada met the EU and Vietnam – Vietnam in its capacity as the incoming chair of the CPTPP trade agreement – and we began discussions on greater integration between the CPTPP and the EU. Linking those two of the world’s largest trading blocks, representing over a billion people, will expand trade, catalyse investment, and increase partnerships across a range of areas, from A.I. to energy, in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and, of course, very much in Canada. Our senior officials will convene over the following months with a mission to deliver concrete results in this new block, early next year.

In addition, Canada is maintaining our leadership in global health and science. On Friday, we pledged a billion dollars to the global fund, which will protect millions of people from the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. The global fund has already helped over 25 million people access HIV medicines, treated 7 million people for tuberculosis, and protected more than 160 million people from malaria. Our new government is working for Canada to move from reliance to resilience by building a broad and dense web of new partnerships and creating new economic opportunities that will make Canada stronger, both at home and abroad.

As we deepen our trade relationships with reliable partners, we are building massive trade and transportation infrastructure at home in Canada.

We are building major national projects that will transform Canada’s future: new ports, mines, energy corridors, projects to develop critical minerals, and clean energy initiatives that will further connect our economy, diversify our industries, and allow us to export to new markets all over the world. As one of the few countries in the world with clean nuclear technology – the CANDU reactor – we are accelerating the nuclear deployment of commercial SMRs for large-capacity reactors. In September, we announced the first series of large projects that will undergo a streamlined review process by our Major Projects Office. Last week, we announced the second series. In total, these projects represent over $115 billion in new investments.

To turbocharge construction, development, and the creation of high-paying careers, we’re signing new deals and finding new investors to fuel our plans in Canada’s economic ambition. Earlier this week, I was in the United Arab Emirates, where I met with the leading sovereign wealth funds and CEOs to attract new investments into Canada. We signed an investment protection agreement, and we launched negotiations on a new comprehensive economic partnership. At the conclusion of my visit, I welcomed the decision of the UAE to invest $70 billion– $70 billion – in Canada. This powerful vote of confidence in our economy represents one of the largest foreign direct investments in Canada’s history and will create high-paying careers across our country, from energy, to agriculture, and artificial intelligence. Overall, we’ve announced almost a dozen new economic and security partnerships across four continents in less than six months. On Monday, we signed a new partnership with Sweden to increase collaboration on trade, investment, and innovation. We’ve signed agreements with the European Union in trade and defence, with Germany in critical minerals, with Chile in technology. We finalized a new trade agreement and economic partnership with Indonesia, we launched negotiations – free trade negotiations – with Thailand and the Philippines, as we accelerated our work to finalise our free trade agreement with the ASEAN nations over the next year, that’s 20% of global GDP.

When historians look back on the coming decade, they will see it as a turning point; the point at which the post-Cold War order gave way to an order that was more contested, but also more advantageous for Canada, if we decide to make the most of it. They will recognize that Canada – a nation formed by builders, voyageurs, and risk takers – chose to rebuild, to take risks again, and to chart new courses.

At the start of my remarks, I recalled that the ties between Canada and South Africa are deep. For many Canadians, these bonds were exemplified by Nelson Mandela’s two addresses to our parliament. The first was in 1990, just months after his release from prison. The second came in 1998, when he was a president; he thanked Canadians for their efforts for justice in South Africa. And amongst President Mandela’s many powerful words, one reflection echoes with resonance today. He said: “We know that our destiny lies in our own hands, yet we also know that we cannot bring about our renaissance solely by our own efforts, since the problems we face are rooted in conditions beyond the power of any one nation to determine.” His words spoke to a moment of rebirth in South Africa, and today, they can guide how we lead the way forward from this moment of rupture. The world is changing. The global economy is being rewired. Canada isn’t retreating. In the face of change, Canada’s new government is making generational investments at home and building deeper partnerships abroad.

In this new era, Canada’s leadership will be defined not only by the strength of our values, but also by the value of our strength.