 Hello everyone, bonjour à tous. 25 years ago, Canada was among the 189 countries that endorsed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This platform outlined a vision of a world in which women have the same rights and opportunities as men. My friends, we're not there yet. And the harsh reality is that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the progress we have made. In fact, it's exacerbating inequalities worldwide. Women have experienced greater job losses and have disproportionately shouldered the burden of unpaid care work at home. And the effects on the world's most vulnerable women and girls are devastating. Now is the time to double down on our efforts to achieve gender equality and to chart our next steps. So rather than putting gender equality on the back burner, let's put an intersectional feminist lens on all of our responses and recovery efforts up front. Each of us must do its part to see whether women, in all their diversity, are at the heart of decisions because we know that it brings better and more inclusive results for everyone. We also know that when women's organizations take advantage of support and flexibility, they turn their community into a whole. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw women's organizations move quickly and change the course of the situation. They have provided solutions adapted to issues such as violence based on sex and access to crucial information about public health. By supporting these organizations and by expanding the leadership of women and girls, not only can we achieve gender equality, but we can also build a world more prosperous, more inclusive and more peaceful. Now even though we're commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform differently than we may have expected, Canada will continue to push this agenda forward. And we're proud to be co-leading the Feminist Movements and Leadership Action Coalition as part of the Beijing Plus 25 Agenda. This year was always going to be important for women and for our collective work towards achieving irreversible progress on gender equality. Well, despite the setbacks of COVID-19, it still can be. This is our moment to be accountable, to be ambitious and to work together to build a better, fairer future for everyone.