 Thank you, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. Before I start, I want to thank all the extraordinary young people from the Confederation Centers, 2017 Young Company, for that incredible performance of the Dreamcatchers. Thank you for making us laugh. Nakumik for making me cry. Thank you for reminding us how we are in such good hands when we look at the young people today who challenge us, who question us, but who inspire us and lead us in so many ways. And that performance, those words, and your sharing of that with the entire country is extraordinary. Thank you very much, my friends. Thank you. I also want to thank Wayne and Claude for their love for the performance and for giving me the chance to be with you today. Madam Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Prime Minister McLaughlin, Chief Belgaard, Chief Brian Francis, thank you for welcoming us into McMond Territory. Your Deputy Charletown and my good friend Sean Casey, distinguished guests, thank you all for taking the time to be here with us this afternoon. As you may have heard, we will proceed a little differently this afternoon. I'm only going to talk for about 25 minutes or so, and then I want to turn the rest of my time over to all of you so that we can have a bit more of a conversation, if that sounds OK to you. When I thought about what I wanted to say today, how to share my thoughts about the state of Canadian Confederation, my mind went back to a story I'd read. It was from last winter, and it happened right here in PEI. It's a story of Ted and Janie Kitson. If you're lucky enough to live here in Charlottetown, you might know them. And if you're really, really lucky, you might live next door to them. Because for the last five years in a row, they've helped clear out their neighbors' walkways and driveways after every snowstorm, which I understand happens from time to time on the island. It started with one elderly neighbor, and then they helped out another and another. Now they're helping dig out six houses worth of snow. When he was asked about it, Ted said that when he was a kid, it was all families helping families. It didn't matter what it was, we were just all out to help. That's just the way we are. As Janie puts it, helping out is the island way. I love that story. Neighbor helping neighbor, lending a hand when times get tough, and being there for each other to help share the load. Yes, that's the island way. Long before Europeans arrived, it was the Mi'kma'a way. And today, when we're at our best, it is the Canadian way. And that's what I wanted to share with you today. This year, as you know, marks the 150th year since Confederation. And as I said back on July 1, that's as good a reason as any to celebrate. But we all know that Canada didn't come into being a mere 150 years ago. Canada, the idea of Canada, goes much further. For thousands of years, people gathered here, to this place that we now call Canada. Sometimes, they did business. Sometimes, they argued. A model for the modern federal and provincial relations, if you will. But what persisted throughout the history of Canada is that the people who lived on this territory worked together, side by side, to build strong communities and ensure a better life for their families. It's been a lot of hard work. It hasn't always been easy. The sacrifices have been great. We lost tens of thousands of young Canadians to brutal world wars. At the same time, we gained millions more, waves of immigrants who saw Canadian Valor on distant shores and decided that this is where they wanted to build for themselves a new and more peaceful life. For good or ill, the Canada we live in today is itself the descendant of the earliest meetings between Indigenous people and newcomers, the product of the foundational relationship between English and French and the beneficiary of every language and culture that came after. For the past 150 years, we have shown the world that diversity can be a source of strength. And it doesn't matter where you came from, what religion you practice, what you wear, or whom you love. You came here from anywhere in the world that built a good life, and you get to be part of our Canadian community. And you don't even need to bring a snow shell, although it is a great way to make new friends. So let's take a look now at how we're doing 150 years in. For a long time, for decades after the end of the Second World War, the promise of progress helped true. This idea, when working hard, we can get what we need to build a better life. We can, for example, get a good job, the kind of job that allows us to submit to the needs of our family, a job that allows us to pay the bills and put a little bit of money aside for the children's studies, and maybe even for our own retirement. But jobs like that, they're getting harder and harder to find now. If you've looked at job ads lately, you know what I'm talking about. Today's ads are for new jobs that demand new skills, a kind that need to be updated constantly. And if you're a young person, you're faced with a vicious circle. It's hard to find a job when you don't have any work experience, and it's hard to get work experience when you don't have a job. That's the reality that far too many people are living in today. But jobs aren't the only thing that Canadian families worry about these days. They're also worried about their incomes. You see, Canada's economy may be doing pretty well these days. GDP growth is strong. Right now, it's the strongest in the G7. And if you look at that trend over time, over say, the last 30 years, our economy has more than doubled. Unfortunately, not everyone is getting a share of that success. Over the last three decades, total market income, that includes earnings from your job, as well as possible investments and other sources, has risen by less than 20% for the vast majority of Canadians, the so-called bottom 90%. In other words, most Canadians saw their incomes grow by less than 1% every year in real terms. No wonder. So many Canadians feel that they're working harder than ever and not getting any further ahead. But that's not true for everyone. If you take a look at Canada's wealthiest 1%, the fewer than 300,000 people across this country who earn at least $230,000 a year, their incomes are up by close to 50% over the past 30 years. The wealthiest 0.1%, their incomes have doubled over the past three decades. And the wealthiest 0.01%, well, they've fared the best of anyone. Their incomes have tripled and they're now earning close to $2.5 million more every year. Now, we're Canadian and we're polite. We don't like to talk too much about money because it might make someone uncomfortable. Well, I think we need to get over ourselves, folks. I think we have to start telling the truth about income inequality in Canada. C'est pas en fermant les yeux sur le problème qu'on fera disparaître. Fermer les yeux ne servirait qu'alimenter la frustration qu'à encourager les gens à trouver une excuse ou quelqu'un à blâmer. Nous connaissons les conséquences. Nous en avons été témoins ici dans notre propre communauté et à travers le monde, in far too many places. Eightful graffiti, cruel comments, senseless violence. We need to be united and courageous and relentless in standing up to those who think that pointing fingers is some kind of solution. But at the same time, as I said, we have to tell the truth about income inequality and what it means for Canadians. Because as uncomfortable as it might be to talk about it, it's a lot more uncomfortable to live it. To be in the position where you have to decide which one of your two kids gets to get a new pair of winter boots this year. To put off paying your bills again because no matter how carefully you budget, there's always that one thing that you didn't plan for. And to be faced with those choices when you know that the CEO of your company is getting million-dollar bonuses that get sent off-shore so they can avoid paying their taxes, people won't stand for it. And they shouldn't. So business leaders bear some responsibility here and I'm one of the first to remind them of that, that they need to look beyond their short-term interests of their shareholders and remember that they have a long-term responsibilities to their workers and to the communities that support them. That means paying a living wage, paying their fair share of taxes, giving workers decent benefits and the peace of mind that comes with stable full-time contracts and making sure that workers are able to keep their skills up to date so that if the worst should happen and the company should go under, at least those workers will have a fighting chance of getting another job. That's what business leaders can do. And the governments also have to act to help people out. And that's been one of our priorities for the last two years. To lay down the fiscal burden of the middle class, to offer a new Canadian allocation to our children, an allocation that will, by the way, be even more generous next summer. Invest in infrastructure, end new commercial agreements to help create even more good jobs, well-regulated, more money to make secondary post-secondary studies more affordable for a greater number of young people. We're exploring ways to help Canadians get the skills they need for good-quality jobs and we're holding multinational corporations to account to make sure they're paying their fair share of taxes. And those offshore accounts I mentioned earlier, well, we're taking action there, too. In the last two budgets, we've set aside nearly a billion dollars to help fight offshore tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. But let's let that sink in for a second. There are people in Canada who are so wealthy that not only do they think they don't need to pay their fair share of taxes, they're forcing us to spend a billion dollars to go after them just so that they'll do the right thing and pay what they owe. A billion dollars to make people do the right thing. I'm not happy about that, and nor should you be. The good news is, we're starting to see a return on that investment. In just the last year, we reviewed all large money transfers between Canada and four specific countries of concern. That's 41,000 transactions worth the total of $12 billion that merited closer scrutiny. Working closely with partners in Canada and around the world, we now have underway close to 1,000 offshore audits and more than 40 criminal investigations with links to offshore transactions. We're also aggressively going after those who promote tax avoidance schemes and so far have imposed $44 million in penalties to those third parties. And we're on track to recuperate $25 billion in tax revenue thanks to those efforts. That's a fraction of what we're owed, but it's a start. And I want to be really clear on why this is important to our government and why it matters to you, too. It's not about punishing those who succeed. We all agree that people succeed, but if we want Canada to prosper, the public interest must go first. In other words, each of us must make its part. You, me, all those who are here and all those who are listening to us. It's a privilege to live here and to call this country home. It is our responsibility as Canadians to care for each other. And that's exactly what we're doing when we pay taxes. Now, I have some political opponents who like to use the word taxes like it's an insult. Now, I don't take that stuff personally, but still it's frustrating. I just wish they'd be honest about it, you know? About the fact that the taxes we pay as Canadians build the highways and seaways and the airports and the rail lines to get our goods to market. The taxes we pay help to set broken bones and push cancer into remission. The taxes we pay mean that if you lose your job, you might not have to lose your house. We've got a Q&A session, so I'm sure we can get into more of this. So I don't want to lay it on too thick, but you see what I'm getting at. It's not because we're liberals that we defend the common good, but because we're Canadian. It's not because we're a liberal government that we defend the public interest. It's because we're a Canadian government. We have to embody and defend the values that we use, the values for whom we work, your values, your optimism, your sense of compassion, your real desire to help your friends and neighbors. That's what motivates me every day. That and the understanding that for all we've accomplished since confederations from universal health care to peacekeeping to the charter of rights and freedoms, much more work lies ahead of us. Our job now is to make sure that every person in Canada has a real and fair chance at success. Yes, that means the middle class, but it also means everyone who is working hard to join the middle class. We need to create more opportunities for those whose voices and perspectives were absent or shut out in 1867. That includes, of course, the Indigenous peoples who are many to consider this year of celebration as if it were another stage of a long relationship marked by betrayal and negligence. That includes women and girls from Canada, whose situation is slowly and surely improved for a century and a half, but whose contributions remain undervalued and underpaid. It includes you, young people, already leaders in your communities who have so much more to give. Canada needs all that you can offer. We need your ideas and your idealism, your strong sense of social justice. That's what will see us through the coming tough years of reconciliation. But we need to amplify these voices and many others because the diversity that thrives here in Canada is a source of tremendous strength. For a century and a half, we have succeeded culturally, politically, economically, because of our differences, not in spite of them. My friends, I started with a story, and I will end with a challenge. It's not my idea, actually. My friend, the mayor of Calgary, Nahid Nenshi, came up with this concept. The challenge is this. Think about three things. Three things that you can do. Three acts of service, large or small. Maybe you want to help sponsor a refugee family or volunteer your time at a local school. Hold open a door for someone who is loaded with groceries or kids. Kids are often heavier than groceries. Or take a cue from Ted and Janie and just show up. Do what needs to be done. It's how we've made it through every tough winter in our country's history. It's how we'll make it through the next 150 years, too, by taking care of each other. It's the island way. It's the Canadian way. Merci d'être des nôtres aujourd'hui. Merci pour cette année.