ENGLISH SPEECH JUSTIN TRUDEAU We are Canadian English Subtitles
Good afternoon.
Mr. President, fellow delegates, and friends.
It is an honour to be with you today.
And it’s wonderful to be here in the great
city of New York.
Once again this week, New Yorkers showed us
how to be resilient and resolute in the face
of violent extremism.
On behalf of everybody in this room, let me
say directly to the people of New York: you
are a model to the world.
And we thank you.
It is the responsibility of a leader to spend
time with the people they were elected to
serve.
If you want the real stories, you have to
go where people live.
Coffee shops and church basements, mosques
and synagogues.
Farmer’s markets.
Public parks.
It was in places like that that I got the
best sense of what Canadians were thinking,
and how they were doing.
And through the politeness—because we Canadians
are always polite, even when we’re complaining—I
learnt some things.
I talked with people my age who were trying
to be hopeful about their future, but found
it tough to make ends meet, even when they
were working full time.
I heard from young Canadians who were frustrated.
Who told me that they couldn’t get a job
because they don’t have work experience,
and they couldn’t get work experience because
they don’t have a job.
I heard from women and girls who still face
inequality in the workplace and violence just
because they are women, even in a progressive
country like Canada.
I met parents working hard to give their children
every chance to succeed, but were afraid that
their efforts won’t be enough.
And I had the opportunity to share meals with
retired seniors who worked hard their whole
lives and are now forced to rely on food banks.
I’ve had too many distressing conversations
with Canadians over the past few years.
But they made something very clear to me.
Canadians still believe in progress.
Or at least, that progress is possible.
But that optimism is mixed with a lot of concern.
Obviously, Canadians are not alone in feeling
that way.
Those feelings are ubiquitous.
That anxiety is a reality.
When leaders are faced with citizens’ anxiety,
we have a choice to make.
Do we exploit that anxiety or do we allay
it?
Exploiting it is easy.
But in order to allay it, we need to be prepared
to answer some very direct questions.
What will create the good, well-paying jobs
that people want, and need, and deserve?
What will strengthen and grow the middle class,
and help those working hard to join it?
What will build an economy that works for
everyone?
What will help to make the world a safer,
more peaceful place?
To allay people’s anxiety, we need to create
economic growth that is broadly shared, because
a fair and successful world is a peaceful
world.
We need to focus on what brings us together,
not what divides us.
For Canada, that means re-engaging in global
affairs through institutions like the United
Nations.
It doesn’t serve our interests—or the
world’s—to pretend we’re not deeply
affected by what happens beyond our borders.
Earlier this year, we helped negotiate the
Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
As part of our commitment
to implementing that agreement, we announced
that Canada would invest $2.65 billion over
five years to fund clean, low-carbon growth
in developing countries.
In order to help promote peace and security
in areas affected by instability, we reaffirmed
our support for NATO and committed ourselves
to expanding Canada’s role in United Nations
peacekeeping operations.
And we hosted the Fifth Global Fund Replenishment
Conference, where we increased our contribution
by 20% by giving more than $800 million to
the Global Fund.
And we also encouraged our partners to increase
their contributions, making it possible to
raise $13 billion in support of ending AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria by 2030.
We’ve done all this—and will do much more—because
we believe we should confront anxiety with
a clear plan to deal with its root causes.
And we believe we should bring people together
around shared purposes like the UN Sustainable
Development Goals.
Because what is the alternative?
To exploit anxiety?
To turn it into fear and blame?
To reject others because they look, or speak,
or pray differently than we do?
You see, in Canada we got a very important
thing right.
Not perfect, but right.
In Canada, we see diversity as a source of
strength, not weakness.
Our country is strong not in spite of our
differences, but because of them.
And make no mistake: we have had many failures,
from the internment of Ukrainian, Japanese
and Italian Canadians during the World Wars;
to our turning away boats of Jewish and Punjabi
refugees; to the shamefully continuing marginalization
of Indigenous Peoples.
What matters is that we learn from our mistakes,
and recommit ourselves to doing better.
To that end, in recent months, Canadians have
opened their arms and their hearts to families
fleeing the
ongoing conflict in Syria.
And from the moment they arrived, those 31,000
refugees were welcomed—not as burdens, but
as neighbours and friends.
As new Canadians.
That effort brought Canadians together.
In an almost unprecedented fashion, the government
worked with the business community, engaged
citizens and civil society to help the newcomers
adapt to their new country.
But our efforts will not truly be successful
until those refugees have become established,
full-fledged members of the Canadian middle
class.
And I want you to know that this objective
is within our grasp—not because of what
we have done, but because of what they are
themselves.
You see, refugees are people with the same
hopes and dreams as our own citizens.
But while our people have felt anxiety, Syrians
faced catastrophe.
Do you want to know where Syria’s middle
class is?
They’re living in refugee camps in Turkey,
Lebanon, and Jordan.
They’re moving across Europe, looking for
a place to set down roots, get their kids
back in school, find steady work, and be productive
citizens.
Refugee camps are teeming with Syria’s middle
class.
Doctors and lawyers.
Teachers and entrepreneurs.
They’re well educated.
They work hard.
They care about their families.
They want a better life—a safer and more
secure future for their kids—as we all do.
So when I say that I hope that the Syrian
refugees we welcomed will soon be able to
join our middle class, I am confident that
we can make that happen.
And we’ll do it by offering to them the
same things we offer to all our citizens—a
real and fair chance at success.
We’re going to do all we can to build a
strong middle class in Canada.
We’re going to invest in education, because
it gives the next generation the tools they
need to contribute to
the world economy and succeed.
We’re going to invest in infrastructure
because it creates good, well-paying jobs
for the middle class and helps to make our
communities better places to live, work and
invest.
We’re determined to build an economy that
works for everyone—not just the wealthiest
1%—so that every person benefits from economic
growth.
And we are going to refuse to give in to the
pressure of trading our cherished values for
easy votes.
The world expects better from us, and we expect
better from ourselves.
In the end, my friends, there is a choice
to be made.
Strong, diverse, resilient countries like
Canada didn’t happen by accident, and they
won’t continue without effort.
Every single day, we need to choose hope over
fear, and diversity over division.
Fear has never fed a family nor created a
single job.
And those who exploit it will never solve
the problems that have created such anxiety.
Our citizens, the nearly 7.5 billion people
we collectively serve, are better than the
cynics and pessimists think they are.
They want their problems solved not exploited.
Listen, Canada is a modest country.
We know we can’t solve these problems alone.
We know we need to do this all together.
We know it will be hard work.
But we’re Canadian.
And we’re here to help.