PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU:  What a real pleasure to welcome Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ottawa.  Tony, it’s so great to see you.  We have so much to talk about, not just incredibly close ties and lots of things we’re working on together for the benefit of our citizens to counter inflation, to support people in difficult times, but we’re engaged side by side around the world.

Obviously Ukraine top of mind as we continue to stand with Ukraine against Russia and standing up for democracies and bringing people from around the world to understand how important it is.  We’re standing together on Iran, where the courageous women standing against this murderous regime are inspiring but are also challenging us to do more to support them.

We’re going to be talking more about Haiti, where the situation is heartbreaking, where there is much that we can do.  But we’re busy engaging very much with local and regional partners to make sure that it is done right.

And in the coming weeks we’ll be seeing each other quite a bit over in Asia as we deepen our work that we’re doing as fellow Pacific nations in the Indo-Pacific as we meet at the G20, at the APEC summit and various other summits where Canada and the United States continue to work side by side on big issues for the benefit of our citizens but also for prosperity, stability, and better opportunities for people around the world.

(In French.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Merci, merci beaucoup.  It’s such a pleasure to be here.  It’s a pleasure to be with the prime minister.  We’re grateful for the time and also grateful for the conversation that I know we’re going to have.  We had – Mélanie and I had a terrific working session over lunch, and I think everything that the prime minister just touched on was front and center in our discussions.

And I think the bottom line is this:  Our two countries are the two most integrated countries in the world, and every single day our people are working together, studying together, visiting together, and that’s having a profoundly positive impact on both countries.  The more integrated we are, the more we’re doing together, the stronger our communities and our economies are going to be.  We’re building a more and more integrated North America that’s going to make, I think, a profound difference in the lives of our people.

But as the prime minister said, we also face challenges together well beyond this hemisphere that we share, in the hemisphere itself but also beyond it.  And in looking at those challenges, whether it’s the Russian aggression in Ukraine, whether it’s what we’ve seen on the streets of Iran today, whether it’s the terrible burden the people of Haiti have had, the thing that gives me confidence and optimism that we can meet the challenges is the fact that we’re working so closely together.

I think both of us start from the conviction that not one of the problems that is either having an effect on our own people or that we need to deal with around the world can be solved by any one of us acting alone.  The more we find ways to coordinate, to cooperate, to work together, the more effective we’re going to be.  And that’s the hallmark of what the United States and Canada are doing together.

And we’re doing this not only in our own hemisphere, not only in Europe when it comes to Ukraine, but also increasingly in the Indo-Pacific, in the Arctic.  We’re both Indo-Pacific countries, we’re both Arctic countries; we spent some time talking about that because so much of the future in different ways will be written in those places.

So for us, having this almost permanent day-in, day-out contact as well as the opportunity to have these conversations couldn’t be more important.  And I have to say we could not be more grateful to have a partner in Canada.  Thank you. 

PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU:  Thank you.  Merci beaucoup.