It’s a great pleasure to be reunited.

I’d like to thank you, Premier Lantz, first for your hospitality, for hosting us last evening, for hosting us here on Prince Edward Island, as well as for your strong leadership of this province and coordination with the Council of the Federation.

I’d like to acknowledge, on behalf of all colleagues, that we’re meeting during one of the worst wildfire seasons in our country’s history. It has ramped up tremendously in recent weeks, and on behalf of all premiers and all Canadians, I want to recognise the work of our firefighters, emergency crews, and members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are working relentlessly across the country to battle these wildfires and keep our people safe.

We’re meeting today in Charlottetown, the birthplace of our Confederation. In 1864, leaders from across British North America gathered a few blocks away from here.

At that time, trade barriers – internal trade barriers – were holding back economic growth. Major infrastructure projects required cooperation across jurisdictions, and there was the threat of American invasion.

What the Fathers of our Confederation – and unfortunately, it was only fathers at that time – suspected then, we know in our bones today: that our unity is our greatest strength, and that our destiny is in our hands.

As everyone knows, on Monday, the United States administration announced its intention to impose the latest in a series of unilateral, unwarranted trade actions.

And we are clear: Canadian governments around this table will do whatever it takes to defend and support our families, our workers, and our businesses.

Let’s also be clear that we are in a stronger position than we were when this trade war started 18 months ago.

We’re in a stronger position because of the determination of Canadians themselves and because of the focus of the premiers around this table.

In response to these actions and threats to Canadian sovereignty, provinces, territories, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast have shown solidarity and stepped up to support our economy and defend our workers, our farmers, our businesses, and our families.

We have met 14 times since March 2025, five times in person.

First Ministers also met virtually on Tuesday to coordinate a united, Team Canada response. We will continue these discussions today, including on how we can make the most of our expanding trade network around the world.

Because Canada has what the world wants – including being a reliable partner in a world that is anything but.

We are building a trade network that is the envy of the world. Canada already has preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers through 16 free trade agreements across 51 countries, which account for about two-thirds of global GDP.

We intend to double that market access by the end of the year.

I want to thank the premiers for supporting more than 50 trade missions since our last meeting in January, and more than 130 since March 2025.

We’re all working to diversify our partnerships abroad, doubling the scale of those markets to over 3 billion people around the world.

And we are building our strength at home, building one Canadian economy. The federal government has removed all its barriers to internal trade.

Critical to our strategy is getting major projects built quickly and responsibly. Nine of 10 provinces have concluded “one project, one review” agreements. I am confident that we will all be in that position soon.

The federal government has already referred 26 nation-building projects to the Major Projects Office, from every region of the country, representing $200 billion in investment and helping Canada build more, move faster, export more, and trade more with the rest of the world.

On internal trade, we’ve been putting our unity to work in practical ways – making it easier for Canadians to buy from each other, sell to each other, and work with one another.

I commend the agreement on Tuesday to let Canadian brewers, wineries, and distillers sell directly to consumers outside their home provinces – putting Canadian products first on Canadian shelves.

In January, we agreed to bring in digital verification for tradespeople by the spring of next year. Those negotiations are underway, and I know we all intend to push them forward and we’re going to discuss some further ambitious ways to cut regulation across our economy.

We are all working to unlock Canada’s full potential as an energy superpower, including implementing our plan to double the capacity of Canada’s electricity grid by 2050 to power a growing economy. That will require the full force of a united Canada working together, and stronger connections between our provincial and territorial grids.

It will require generational investments in electricity generation, transmission, distribution, storage, and grid modernisation.

These new consultations will explore how to most effectively finance the build-out, to spread the costs over time to match the benefits.

Our government is also committed to amending the Clean Electricity Regulations to ensure the reliability and accessibility of the energy supply in the short term, while continuing the transition to cleaner energy.

Crucially, all of this is connected: the interties, the incentives, and the proposed changes to the clean electricity regulations – which is the responsibility of the federal government. So that we can build out our grid and build it in an affordable way that advances the energy transition.

This morning, we took important steps: our government was part of an important announcement for an expanded transmission line between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. And premiers Holt, Houston, and Lantz also signed an agreement to plan and operate their electricity systems together between their provinces – an agreement that our government is backing.

I’ll also point out Premier Eby’s leadership on many things, including British Columbia’s North Coast Transmission Line. Clean power opens up economic development in a vast part of British Columbia, but also creates the ability to have these interties with Alberta and with the Yukon to provide clean power there.

So, we’ll discuss ways to move forward on electricity today as well as the possibility of building out and expanding our carbon markets across the country.

I’ll finish by observing that we face, in some respects, many similar challenges as the Fathers of Confederation did 162 years ago, but we have many more advantages. It starts with being more diverse with better representation. We’re more prosperous, more focused, and we have the lessons of history that when Team Canada is united there is nothing we cannot do.

I will now turn to the Chair of the Council of the Federation, Premier Lantz.