Address by Minister Dion at APEC plenary session: Inclusive growth through sustainable and resilient communities

Speech

November 17, 2015 - Manila, Philippines

Check Against Delivery. This speech has been translated in accordance with the official languages policy and edited for posting and distribution in accordance with the Government of Canada’s communications policy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, I want to tell you how much I am pleased that my first intervention is here in the Philippines, and I want to recognize the vital role that the Philippines has played in guiding us through this APEC cycle, and especially you, [Secretary of Foreign Affairs] Minister Albert del Rosario.

As are all of you, I am shocked and dismayed at the tragic events in Paris last Friday. Canada has pledged to France its full support and solidarity facing this appalling and barbaric attack. I join Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau and all Canadians in expressing our deepest condolences to the friends and families of those killed and injured. As mourns the City of Light, so does all of Canada.

Countering international terrorism requires both national and concerted international effort; APEC through its Counter-Terrorism Working Group will continue to play its part. Canada will work closely with the international community to help prevent these terrible, senseless acts.

Colleagues, I listened with a lot of attention to what you said yesterday and today about inclusive growth through sustainable and resilient economies.

And I’m confident that you will see a lot of support in the approach that the Government of Canada wants to take in Canada and in our international efforts regarding inclusive and sustainable growth.

On inclusive growth, the priority of Canada will be to strengthen the middle class. We’ll ask the “one percent” of the richest in Canada, and the “point zero one percent,” to do more. We want more fiscal justice in Canada, and we want to work with all of you, to have more fiscal justice everywhere. Fiscal justice is not a result of economic growth—it is the condition for economic growth.

And the same must be said about sustainable growth. It is impossible to separate economic growth from the environment. This is not a slogan, it is a necessity for growth. And for that, the Government of Canada’s strategy will include targeted, significant and responsible investment. Our debt-to-GDP ratio will continue to decrease, but sustainable growth will be supported by targeted investment, especially in public and social infrastructure. We will multiply by four our investment in public transit, we will invest significantly in green technology and infrastructure, especially in clean energy; local water and wastewater facilities; climate-resilient infrastructure, including flood-mitigation systems; and infrastructure to prepare and respond to weather-related emergencies.

We will also invest more each year in clean-technology producers, so that they can tackle Canada’s most pressing environmental challenges, and support innovation in the use of clean technologies across our natural resources sectors, including forestry, fisheries, mining, energy and agriculture, creating more opportunities for Canadian workers.

This will boost domestic demand for clean technology, support entrepreneurs and stimulate the creation of new jobs.

We will improve energy-efficiency standards for consumer and commercial products, and use new financing instruments to encourage investments in energy-saving retrofits in Canada’s industrial, commercial and residential buildings.

We also plan to create a new Low Carbon Economy Trust, which will provide funding to projects that materially reduce carbon emissions in Canada. Canada will do its share to tackle the threat of climate change in Paris at COP21 and beyond.

For Canada, the science on climate change is indisputable. As a northern nation, we see and feel its effects. Changes in climate are increasingly affecting our natural environment, our economy and our population. This is what in the Philippines you call the “new normal”.

And we recognize that our friends around the world are also struggling with the impacts of climate change, which are being felt in Southeast Asia and in the South Pacific especially.

For the Philippines—as witnessed during Typhoon Yolanda—and for other ASEAN countries, these issues are particularly salient as they rebuild after the devastation caused by the strongest typhoons ever recorded.

As highlighted so eloquently yesterday by Mr. [Shiu] Raj, Director for Economic Governance at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, the situation is particularly dramatic, if not existential, for some Pacific Island countries that risk more severe and frequent natural disasters as a result of climate change.

I am pleased that APEC has developed an APEC Disaster Risk Reduction Framework. This framework will serve APEC economies well as they manage disasters and minimize the economic disruption that natural disasters can inflict on increasingly integrated and interlinked production and supply chains across the region.

Together, we must begin now to take the essential steps to transform our global economy in order to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. A journey of a thousand miles must begin not with a single step, but with several steps, made in concert together and now.

Mr. Chair, we live in a time of great challenges, but along with these challenges come great opportunities:

1. the opportunity to stimulate the next wave of technological innovation, particularly in green and low-carbon technologies, that will allow us to move away from an intensive carbon economy while promoting growth and sustainable development;
2. the opportunity to entrench sustainable development principles in the growth of our communities and cities;
3. the opportunity to spur our cities to become the engines of economic transformation and to serve as the catalysts for knowledge generation and its application through future job-creating innovation;
4. the opportunity to take actions that would deliver the greenhouse gas emissions reductions required to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius, which would at the same time deliver economic benefits and boost economic growth; and
5. the opportunity to reach an ambitious, fair and effective new Climate Agreement in Paris this December that will take us toward a prosperous and healthy future.

In the lead up to the Paris Conference, momentum is growing. Governments at all levels, businesses, financial institutions and civil society are working together to take the necessary steps to transform the global economy in a way that both stimulates growth and reduces climate risks.

As APEC economies, we have the responsibility to send a strong political message to the world that we are committed to success in Paris. I assure you that Canada will stand with you and be a strong actor to achieve such success in Paris, as the well-being and prosperity of future generations depend on our collective leadership.

Canada recognizes the challenges at hand and is committed to working collaboratively with our partners to play a constructive role to support inclusive growth through sustainable and resilient communities.

I look forward to working together with my new colleagues in APEC to make this opportunity a reality.

Thank you.

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