What an honour and pleasure to be here in Mirabel with you, Premier Fréchette, Mayor Therrien, the Minister of Industry, Quebec Minister Drainville, my parliamentary colleagues, members of the National Assembly of Quebec, and the innovators and workers here at Airbus. It’s incredible.

It’s so good to be here, it’s so much fun, and I only have five minutes. No, I have a little more but I’m going to be… I want to provide a bit of context because I’m going to pick up on a few things that Tony said much better than me because he’s lived it, but we’re here today because of the combined power of entrepreneurs, of builders, and, yes, of governments, governments that have fallen on the brilliant side of that line between brilliance and stupidity, I’d like to think, the power that’s building a stronger, more resilient, more independent Canada, a power that’s deepening the links between Canada and ASEAN, very important point, deepening the links between Canada and ASEAN to the benefit of our workers, our families, our tourists, our businesspeople, and the very first link in that chain is the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the builder. And so, let me salute Tony Fernandes who is an entrepreneur extraordinaire who took the risk, took a series of risks, and that’s why we’re all gathered today for a brighter future.

And Tony and I have known each other for a bit but when we last saw each other was in October in Kuala Lumpur for ASEAN, and we were discussing the various crises that we’d been through in the past, financial crises, COVID, and we discussed how best to respond to a world that’s changing even more dramatically in many respects than then, and we shared a vision of deepening ties between those countries that, in this crisis that we’re still living through, are choosing to build in the face of adversity, countries that have the confidence to open up, to link their economies, to invest in their workers, to move forward, not turn back, and I emphasized to Tony that Canada is once again building big at home and creating reliable partnerships abroad, including very much with ASEAN. So, Tony, thank you. Thank you for the trust you’re placing in Canadian workers in Quebec, in Mirabel. You’re choosing the best at exactly the right time.

And thank you for recognizing, as you did in your words, the Canadian entrepreneurs and risk-takers including Pierre Beaudoin who created the C series, that terrible plane apparently, transformed immediately overnight.

The C series, the predecessor of the A220, and thank you, above all, to the workers and builders at Airbus that are now making it happen.

Thank you. Thank you, Lars. Thank you, Guillaume, and the team at Airbus of your leadership. Above all, thank you to the workers here in Mirabel and across Canada who are building Canada’s excellence in aviation. Canada has always been a nation of builders. In the past, for instance, in February 1909, a young engineer by the name of J.A.D. McCurdy, lifted off from the frozen surface of Bras d’Or Lake. It was the first powered flight in Canada’s history – and the first in the entire British Empire. McCurdy was a builder and a daring man. He dedicated himself to projects that others considered impossible, notably, the first flight between Florida and Cuba. In 1928, McCurdy stepped away from his feats of aviation to build the industry. He settled in Montréal and founded Reid Aircraft, one of Quebec’s first major aeronautical manufacturers. The facility he developed became Canadair, then Bombardier, (inaudible) that gave us the C Series, which has since become A220 that stands as a point of pride. Currently, this aerospace industry employs over 60,000 workers and contributes about 15 billion dollars annually to our economy. The same conviction – that ambition and drive can change the course of a nation – is what we call upon today.

So, today, consistent with the conversation we had those few months ago amidst this global turmoil. Canada, Quebec, we’re focused on what we can control. We’re building our strength at home. We’re diversifying our trade with reliable partners abroad. We’re catalyzing, across Canada, a trillion dollars in total investment over the next five years across clean and conventional energy, trade corridors, critical minerals, A.I., aerospace, defence, and beyond. We’re helping to transform and train our workforce, including through last week’s announcement of a $6 billion investment in Team Canada Strong to recruit, to train, to hire over 100,000 new skilled trades workers in the next five years.

And we are also supporting, thanks to the Minister of Industry, we are also supporting workers and businesses impacted by the unjustified U.S. tariffs. We have put forward a one-billion-dollar funding program for the steel, aluminum, and copper industries, together with a 500-million-dollar regional response supporting every sector of the economy – including 105 million dollars for Quebec.

We’re creating new opportunities for Canadian businesses through more than 20 economic and security partnerships that we’ve signed on five continents in less than a year. We’re working towards concluding comprehensive free trade agreements with India, with Thailand, the Philippines, Mercosur, and above all, ASEAN, this year. Foreign direct investment into Canada is already at its highest level in nearly two decades. It’s running at twice the rate, on a per capita basis, as our nearest G7 competitor, and we’re just getting started.

Just like you. Just like Tony.

Partners around the world see what Canada is building and the certainty and stability we can provide. Businesses are choosing Canada because we have what the world wants. Quebec has what the world wants.

And here in Mirabel, workers and innovators are building what the world wants. I am very pleased; I am so pleased that AirAsia is moving forward with the single-largest order of Canadian-designed aircraft in history This agreement, as Lars mentioned, this agreement will be a game-changer for Quebec’s dynamic and world-leading aerospace manufacturing. For thousands of engineers, electricians, steel welders, and IT specialists, it will mean high-paying and rewarding work and an opportunity to build a world class aircraft – one that will connect millions of people to more opportunities, more destinations, and more time with their loved ones.

The A220 300 is a showcase of Canadian ingenuity, lower fuel consumption, reduced emissions, smaller noise footprint, advanced propulsion system, lightweight materials, cutting-edge aerodynamics, built, and you said Lars, as everyone here knows, with a clean sheet design. I know that it was built with a clean sheet design. I have no idea what that means but it says that right there.

I have an idea. I do have an idea. I don’t really know, developed by scratch by Canadian workers.

With more than 5,000 highly skilled workers, Canada hosts Airbus’s most comprehensive A220 program site outside Europe. It has been a resounding success.

Since 2016, Airbus’ Canadian workforce has more than doubled. You’ve harnessed world-class Canadian talent across engineering, computer science, aeronautics, and including through deep collaborations with our institutions, including McGill, University of Waterloo, many others. This facility, this Mirabel facility, is a cornerstone of that success, combining engineering, advanced research, administration, final assembly in one integrated operation, but it’s also important to recognize that behind every aircraft assembled here is a broader network of suppliers, builders, technicians, innovators across the country, steelworkers fulfilling new orders with the certainty of a stable paycheck, engineering graduates knowing they have the first opportunity to apply their skills, students knowing they should go into engineering to be part of this industry, mechanics who transform blueprints into the industrial marvels we see on the floor all working together to deliver world-class aircraft. In the end, as at the beginning, it’s the entrepreneurs who imagine, the workers who build, and the governments, including very much the Government of Quebec, the governments who back them. That’s how Canada and Quebec win. That is what the world is choosing today.

And this is how we are building a stronger, more independent, and more resilient economy. We are building Mirabel strong and Quebec strong to build Canada strong for all. Thank you very much. Congratulations (inaudible).

What an honour and pleasure to be here in Mirabel with you, Premier Fréchette, Mayor Therrien, the Minister of Industry, Quebec Minister Drainville, my parliamentary colleagues, members of the National Assembly of Quebec, and the innovators and workers here at Airbus. It’s incredible.

It’s so good to be here, it’s so much fun, and I only have five minutes. No, I have a little more but I’m going to be… I want to provide a bit of context because I’m going to pick up on a few things that Tony said much better than me because he’s lived it, but we’re here today because of the combined power of entrepreneurs, of builders, and, yes, of governments, governments that have fallen on the brilliant side of that line between brilliance and stupidity, I’d like to think, the power that’s building a stronger, more resilient, more independent Canada, a power that’s deepening the links between Canada and ASEAN, very important point, deepening the links between Canada and ASEAN to the benefit of our workers, our families, our tourists, our businesspeople, and the very first link in that chain is the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the builder. And so, let me salute Tony Fernandes who is an entrepreneur extraordinaire who took the risk, took a series of risks, and that’s why we’re all gathered today for a brighter future.

And Tony and I have known each other for a bit but when we last saw each other was in October in Kuala Lumpur for ASEAN, and we were discussing the various crises that we’d been through in the past, financial crises, COVID, and we discussed how best to respond to a world that’s changing even more dramatically in many respects than then, and we shared a vision of deepening ties between those countries that, in this crisis that we’re still living through, are choosing to build in the face of adversity, countries that have the confidence to open up, to link their economies, to invest in their workers, to move forward, not turn back, and I emphasized to Tony that Canada is once again building big at home and creating reliable partnerships abroad, including very much with ASEAN. So, Tony, thank you. Thank you for the trust you’re placing in Canadian workers in Quebec, in Mirabel. You’re choosing the best at exactly the right time.

And thank you for recognizing, as you did in your words, the Canadian entrepreneurs and risk-takers including Pierre Beaudoin who created the C series, that terrible plane apparently, transformed immediately overnight.

The C series, the predecessor of the A220, and thank you, above all, to the workers and builders at Airbus that are now making it happen.

Thank you. Thank you, Lars. Thank you, Guillaume, and the team at Airbus of your leadership. Above all, thank you to the workers here in Mirabel and across Canada who are building Canada’s excellence in aviation. Canada has always been a nation of builders. In the past, for instance, in February 1909, a young engineer by the name of J.A.D. McCurdy, lifted off from the frozen surface of Bras d’Or Lake. It was the first powered flight in Canada’s history – and the first in the entire British Empire. McCurdy was a builder and a daring man. He dedicated himself to projects that others considered impossible, notably, the first flight between Florida and Cuba. In 1928, McCurdy stepped away from his feats of aviation to build the industry. He settled in Montréal and founded Reid Aircraft, one of Quebec’s first major aeronautical manufacturers. The facility he developed became Canadair, then Bombardier, (inaudible) that gave us the C Series, which has since become A220 that stands as a point of pride. Currently, this aerospace industry employs over 60,000 workers and contributes about 15 billion dollars annually to our economy. The same conviction – that ambition and drive can change the course of a nation – is what we call upon today.

So, today, consistent with the conversation we had those few months ago amidst this global turmoil. Canada, Quebec, we’re focused on what we can control. We’re building our strength at home. We’re diversifying our trade with reliable partners abroad. We’re catalyzing, across Canada, a trillion dollars in total investment over the next five years across clean and conventional energy, trade corridors, critical minerals, A.I., aerospace, defence, and beyond. We’re helping to transform and train our workforce, including through last week’s announcement of a $6 billion investment in Team Canada Strong to recruit, to train, to hire over 100,000 new skilled trades workers in the next five years.

And we are also supporting, thanks to the Minister of Industry, we are also supporting workers and businesses impacted by the unjustified U.S. tariffs. We have put forward a one-billion-dollar funding program for the steel, aluminum, and copper industries, together with a 500-million-dollar regional response supporting every sector of the economy – including 105 million dollars for Quebec.

We’re creating new opportunities for Canadian businesses through more than 20 economic and security partnerships that we’ve signed on five continents in less than a year. We’re working towards concluding comprehensive free trade agreements with India, with Thailand, the Philippines, Mercosur, and above all, ASEAN, this year. Foreign direct investment into Canada is already at its highest level in nearly two decades. It’s running at twice the rate, on a per capita basis, as our nearest G7 competitor, and we’re just getting started.

Just like you. Just like Tony.

Partners around the world see what Canada is building and the certainty and stability we can provide. Businesses are choosing Canada because we have what the world wants. Quebec has what the world wants.

And here in Mirabel, workers and innovators are building what the world wants. I am very pleased; I am so pleased that AirAsia is moving forward with the single-largest order of Canadian-designed aircraft in history This agreement, as Lars mentioned, this agreement will be a game-changer for Quebec’s dynamic and world-leading aerospace manufacturing. For thousands of engineers, electricians, steel welders, and IT specialists, it will mean high-paying and rewarding work and an opportunity to build a world class aircraft – one that will connect millions of people to more opportunities, more destinations, and more time with their loved ones.

The A220 300 is a showcase of Canadian ingenuity, lower fuel consumption, reduced emissions, smaller noise footprint, advanced propulsion system, lightweight materials, cutting-edge aerodynamics, built, and you said Lars, as everyone here knows, with a clean sheet design. I know that it was built with a clean sheet design. I have no idea what that means but it says that right there.

I have an idea. I do have an idea. I don’t really know, developed by scratch by Canadian workers.

With more than 5,000 highly skilled workers, Canada hosts Airbus’s most comprehensive A220 program site outside Europe. It has been a resounding success.

Since 2016, Airbus’ Canadian workforce has more than doubled. You’ve harnessed world-class Canadian talent across engineering, computer science, aeronautics, and including through deep collaborations with our institutions, including McGill, University of Waterloo, many others. This facility, this Mirabel facility, is a cornerstone of that success, combining engineering, advanced research, administration, final assembly in one integrated operation, but it’s also important to recognize that behind every aircraft assembled here is a broader network of suppliers, builders, technicians, innovators across the country, steelworkers fulfilling new orders with the certainty of a stable paycheck, engineering graduates knowing they have the first opportunity to apply their skills, students knowing they should go into engineering to be part of this industry, mechanics who transform blueprints into the industrial marvels we see on the floor all working together to deliver world-class aircraft. In the end, as at the beginning, it’s the entrepreneurs who imagine, the workers who build, and the governments, including very much the Government of Quebec, the governments who back them. That’s how Canada and Quebec win. That is what the world is choosing today.

And this is how we are building a stronger, more independent, and more resilient economy. We are building Mirabel strong and Quebec strong to build Canada strong for all. Thank you very much. Congratulations (inaudible).

“Today, we join Tamil communities in Canada and around the world in commemorating Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.

The Sri Lankan civil war claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives over more than a quarter century. We honour the memory of those who lost their lives and stand with the survivors, families, and communities who endured profound suffering.

Canada is home to one of the largest Tamil diasporas in the world, including many who came here seeking refuge from violence and persecution. In 2022, Canada’s Parliament unanimously voted to recognise May18 as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day and recognise the atrocities committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka as genocide – reflecting an important step in acknowledging this painful history.

Canada will continue to support international efforts to advance accountability, uphold human rights, and promote lasting peace for the people of the island.

We reaffirm our commitment to human dignity and justice, and to ensuring that such grave violations of human rights are never ignored or forgotten.”

“Today, we join Tamil communities in Canada and around the world in commemorating Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.

The Sri Lankan civil war claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives over more than a quarter century. We honour the memory of those who lost their lives and stand with the survivors, families, and communities who endured profound suffering.

Canada is home to one of the largest Tamil diasporas in the world, including many who came here seeking refuge from violence and persecution. In 2022, Canada’s Parliament unanimously voted to recognise May18 as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day and recognise the atrocities committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka as genocide – reflecting an important step in acknowledging this painful history.

Canada will continue to support international efforts to advance accountability, uphold human rights, and promote lasting peace for the people of the island.

We reaffirm our commitment to human dignity and justice, and to ensuring that such grave violations of human rights are never ignored or forgotten.”

OK. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone.We are gathering on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.This land acknowledgement bears witness to the shared history of the people of this country. May we continue on the path of truth and reconciliation together, guided not only by our words but by our actions.

It’s appropriate that we’re gathering this morning at the National Gallery of Canada. A few blocks away from here at the then Clarendon Hotel, 146 years ago, the first exhibition was held at the Canadian Academy of the Arts. That academy was the dream of the then governor general, the Marquess of Lorne and his wife, her Royal Highness Princess Louise. They believed that a young confederation needed institutions through which it could see itself and through which it could be seen by the world. 388 works hung in the Clarendon that evening, and those works would become the seeds of this gallery, which today holds more than 17,000 works of Canadian, indigenous and global art. Canada was built on the foundations of three peoples; Indigenous, French and British. Indigenous peoples mapped this continent, sustained its lands and waters and built trading networks from coast to coast to coast for thousands of years before any European arrival. The French built a society shaped by river and forest, by partnership with indigenous nations and by a determination to flourish in a new world. When the British came, that civilization did not disappear. It suffered, but endured. And in time it grew into the Federation that we know today. Let’s be clear; that founding was imperfect. It excluded too many. It was built in part on the dispossession and broken promises to indigenous peoples. But that founding contained an insight, an insight that has carried us forward; that unity does not require uniformity, that our differences are strengths to be nurtured, not a risk to be managed. That insight has been sustained and then reinforced generation after generation by our institutions, Parliament, the courts, the crown, the treaties, the Charter, the public service, a free press.

Institutions are how a country of our scale and diversity does not merely hold itself together but thrives.In a more dangerous, divided, and uncivil world, institutions matter more than ever.

A year ago, His Majesty King Charles opened our parliament with a speech from the Throne, the first time in nearly 70 years that Canada’s sovereign had done so in person. The Crown is a continuous thread through our constitutional life. It is, as His Majesty himself said, a symbol of Canada in all her richness and dynamism. And the Governor-General is the Crown’s representative in Canada, Commander in Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, steward of our traditions, of peace, order and good government. And above all, the Governor-General is the guardian of our constitutional order. The most demanding part of that role is rarely seen. It’s the duty to ensure the government in Canada is formed, sustained, and when the time comes, dismissed in accordance with law and convention. It’s a duty that calls for sound judgment, deep learning and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law. That is the office. And it is the office to which I have asked His Majesty to appoint a Canadian whose entire life has been dedicated to that very principle. I’m very pleased to announce that on my recommendation, His Majesty has approved the appointment of the Honorable Louise Arbour as the 31st Governor-General of Canada.

Born in Montréal, Louise Arbour studied at the Université de Montréal, was called to the Quebec Bar in 1971 and the Ontario Bar in 1977. She built her early career as a scholar at Osgoode Hall and as a leading voice for civil liberties in this country.

In 1987, Louise Arbour was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario as it was then known. In 1990, she was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. In 1999, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. One of Canada’s most demanding judicial careers, more than enough for one lifetime. That career would serve only as the foundation for what came next, because her most consequential work as a jurist was beyond the Canadian courtroom. In 1996, Louise Arbour was appointed by the United Nations Security Council as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, the first international criminal tribunals since Nuremberg. She inherited two institutions that many believed could not succeed. She made them succeed. Under her leadership, the tribunal secured the first conviction for genocide since the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948. The Akayesu judgment, which also established for the first time that sexual violence can constitute a weapon of genocide and a crime against humanity. And in 1999, in the middle of a war, she signed the indictment of a sitting head of state, Slobodan Milosevic, for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war, something that had never been done before.

A new precedent for justice free from fear or favour.These were not technical achievements.They are the foundation of the modern proposition that no person, however powerful, and no state, however protected, stands outside the reach of law.

That proposition is the foundation of Canadian citizenship. We’re a country whose civic identity is grounded in the universality of rights, that what is owed to one of us is owed to all of us. And what is owed to a Canadian is owed in our tradition to every human being, whether or not they have the great good fortune to live here. In 2004, Louise Arbour left the Supreme Court of Canada to become United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. For four years, she gave voice to those whose dignity was denied. In places where the powerful preferred silence, she did not flinch and she never confused being heard with being safe.

There is a third through-line in her career, less remarked upon but no less important.

Three times, Louise Arbour has been asked to look hard at an institution that had failed the people in its care, and to set out what would be needed to put it right.In 1995, she chaired the inquiry into the Prison for Women in Kingston, a report that catalysed the modernisation of how Canada incarcerates women.As High Commissioner, she pressed the United Nations human rights system itself to be worthy of the people it claimed to serve.And in 2022, she delivered her Independent External Comprehensive Review of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces –a report whose recommendations are now being implemented, and which will reshape Canadian military justice.

Her work matters in and of itself. It also tells us something about what Louise Arbour will bring to Rideau Hall. The conviction that institutions are the load bearing walls of a civil society and that they remain trustworthy only as long as someone is willing to hold them accountable. Louise Arbour has held nearly every office a Canadian jurist can hold and several that no Canadian has held before. She has been recognized with nearly 100 honours and awards, including 42 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. She’s a companion of the Order of Canada, our country’s highest civilian honour. But the measure of her career is neither in the offices she is held nor the awards she’s received, it’s in the lives she has changed through her service. Survivors of genocide who saw justice in their lifetimes. Women in prisons in Canada whose conditions were improved because she said what no one else would say. Members of our armed forces who can serve today with greater dignity because of the report that she wrote.

Millions of people have had their rights better protected because, somewhere, an institution that Louise Arbour helped build did its work. And millions more have benefited from the precedents and standards, standards she established.That is service in its truest sense – not service to a role, but to principles.

Across more than five decades in every role she’s held, the Honorable Louise Arbour has carried the same conviction that a free society depends on institutions properly being held to account, that the law stands between power and the powerless, that the dignity of every person should not be a product of the accidents of geography, citizenship or convenience, and that Canada’s place in the world is to be a country that lives those propositions and helps others to live them as well. A deeply Canadian conviction, one that’s older than our charter and broader than our borders. It runs through our public life from the person’s case to the patriation of our Constitution, from the building of Medicare, to the building of the United Nations.

It is the conviction that a community is more than the sum of its members – that it is the institutions, the traditions, and the commitments through which we choose to live together.This is what Louise Arbour has devoted her life to defending and defining. And it is what she will bring to the role she is about to assume.

Before I conclude, we observe that Madam Arbour will succeed an exemplary Governor-General. Her Excellency, the right Honorable Mary Simon has been a steadfast representative of Canada and our institutions at home and around the world. As the first Indigenous person to serve in this role, she’s carried forward a lifetime of advocacy for Inuit rights, for Indigenous self-determination, and for the preservation of our indigenous languages, cultures and identities.

As she has often said, reconciliation is not a project with an end date, but a responsibility to be lived – day after day, in how we listen, how we learn, and how we act.Mary Simon championed literacy and education as foundations of self-determination. She elevated national conversations on mental health, particularly in northern and Indigenous communities, bringing visibility to challenges too often overlooked, and dignity to those too often unheard.Her legacy will endure not only in her service, but in how she served – with grace, resolve, and an unshakeable belief in Canada’s greatness.

To our Excellency Governor General Simon, to His Excellency Whit Fraser, to your family, thank you for your extraordinary service to Canada. At a time when much of the world is buffeted by crises and the worst are full of passionate intensity, Canada’s history, our institutions and our enduring traditions matter more than ever. We retain our convictions. We reinforce our institutions. As Mary Simon has, Louise Arbour will represent the best of Canada to Canadians and to the world. A country that’s a bastion of security, prosperity and justice, a beacon to a world lost at sea. A Canada that is clear eyed about the challenges we face and steadfast in the values we uphold. A Canada that’s not just strong but good. A Canada that’s not just prosperous but fair. A Canada that is not just for some most of the time, but for all, all of the time.

Madame Arbour, on behalf of the Government of Canada, and on behalf of all Canadians, thank you for agreeing, once again, to serve our country.

OK. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone.We are gathering on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.This land acknowledgement bears witness to the shared history of the people of this country. May we continue on the path of truth and reconciliation together, guided not only by our words but by our actions.

It’s appropriate that we’re gathering this morning at the National Gallery of Canada. A few blocks away from here at the then Clarendon Hotel, 146 years ago, the first exhibition was held at the Canadian Academy of the Arts. That academy was the dream of the then governor general, the Marquess of Lorne and his wife, her Royal Highness Princess Louise. They believed that a young confederation needed institutions through which it could see itself and through which it could be seen by the world. 388 works hung in the Clarendon that evening, and those works would become the seeds of this gallery, which today holds more than 17,000 works of Canadian, indigenous and global art. Canada was built on the foundations of three peoples; Indigenous, French and British. Indigenous peoples mapped this continent, sustained its lands and waters and built trading networks from coast to coast to coast for thousands of years before any European arrival. The French built a society shaped by river and forest, by partnership with indigenous nations and by a determination to flourish in a new world. When the British came, that civilization did not disappear. It suffered, but endured. And in time it grew into the Federation that we know today. Let’s be clear; that founding was imperfect. It excluded too many. It was built in part on the dispossession and broken promises to indigenous peoples. But that founding contained an insight, an insight that has carried us forward; that unity does not require uniformity, that our differences are strengths to be nurtured, not a risk to be managed. That insight has been sustained and then reinforced generation after generation by our institutions, Parliament, the courts, the crown, the treaties, the Charter, the public service, a free press.

Institutions are how a country of our scale and diversity does not merely hold itself together but thrives.In a more dangerous, divided, and uncivil world, institutions matter more than ever.

A year ago, His Majesty King Charles opened our parliament with a speech from the Throne, the first time in nearly 70 years that Canada’s sovereign had done so in person. The Crown is a continuous thread through our constitutional life. It is, as His Majesty himself said, a symbol of Canada in all her richness and dynamism. And the Governor-General is the Crown’s representative in Canada, Commander in Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, steward of our traditions, of peace, order and good government. And above all, the Governor-General is the guardian of our constitutional order. The most demanding part of that role is rarely seen. It’s the duty to ensure the government in Canada is formed, sustained, and when the time comes, dismissed in accordance with law and convention. It’s a duty that calls for sound judgment, deep learning and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law. That is the office. And it is the office to which I have asked His Majesty to appoint a Canadian whose entire life has been dedicated to that very principle. I’m very pleased to announce that on my recommendation, His Majesty has approved the appointment of the Honorable Louise Arbour as the 31st Governor-General of Canada.

Born in Montréal, Louise Arbour studied at the Université de Montréal, was called to the Quebec Bar in 1971 and the Ontario Bar in 1977. She built her early career as a scholar at Osgoode Hall and as a leading voice for civil liberties in this country.

In 1987, Louise Arbour was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario as it was then known. In 1990, she was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. In 1999, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. One of Canada’s most demanding judicial careers, more than enough for one lifetime. That career would serve only as the foundation for what came next, because her most consequential work as a jurist was beyond the Canadian courtroom. In 1996, Louise Arbour was appointed by the United Nations Security Council as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, the first international criminal tribunals since Nuremberg. She inherited two institutions that many believed could not succeed. She made them succeed. Under her leadership, the tribunal secured the first conviction for genocide since the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948. The Akayesu judgment, which also established for the first time that sexual violence can constitute a weapon of genocide and a crime against humanity. And in 1999, in the middle of a war, she signed the indictment of a sitting head of state, Slobodan Milosevic, for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war, something that had never been done before.

A new precedent for justice free from fear or favour.These were not technical achievements.They are the foundation of the modern proposition that no person, however powerful, and no state, however protected, stands outside the reach of law.

That proposition is the foundation of Canadian citizenship. We’re a country whose civic identity is grounded in the universality of rights, that what is owed to one of us is owed to all of us. And what is owed to a Canadian is owed in our tradition to every human being, whether or not they have the great good fortune to live here. In 2004, Louise Arbour left the Supreme Court of Canada to become United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. For four years, she gave voice to those whose dignity was denied. In places where the powerful preferred silence, she did not flinch and she never confused being heard with being safe.

There is a third through-line in her career, less remarked upon but no less important.

Three times, Louise Arbour has been asked to look hard at an institution that had failed the people in its care, and to set out what would be needed to put it right.In 1995, she chaired the inquiry into the Prison for Women in Kingston, a report that catalysed the modernisation of how Canada incarcerates women.As High Commissioner, she pressed the United Nations human rights system itself to be worthy of the people it claimed to serve.And in 2022, she delivered her Independent External Comprehensive Review of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces –a report whose recommendations are now being implemented, and which will reshape Canadian military justice.

Her work matters in and of itself. It also tells us something about what Louise Arbour will bring to Rideau Hall. The conviction that institutions are the load bearing walls of a civil society and that they remain trustworthy only as long as someone is willing to hold them accountable. Louise Arbour has held nearly every office a Canadian jurist can hold and several that no Canadian has held before. She has been recognized with nearly 100 honours and awards, including 42 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. She’s a companion of the Order of Canada, our country’s highest civilian honour. But the measure of her career is neither in the offices she is held nor the awards she’s received, it’s in the lives she has changed through her service. Survivors of genocide who saw justice in their lifetimes. Women in prisons in Canada whose conditions were improved because she said what no one else would say. Members of our armed forces who can serve today with greater dignity because of the report that she wrote.

Millions of people have had their rights better protected because, somewhere, an institution that Louise Arbour helped build did its work. And millions more have benefited from the precedents and standards, standards she established.That is service in its truest sense – not service to a role, but to principles.

Across more than five decades in every role she’s held, the Honorable Louise Arbour has carried the same conviction that a free society depends on institutions properly being held to account, that the law stands between power and the powerless, that the dignity of every person should not be a product of the accidents of geography, citizenship or convenience, and that Canada’s place in the world is to be a country that lives those propositions and helps others to live them as well. A deeply Canadian conviction, one that’s older than our charter and broader than our borders. It runs through our public life from the person’s case to the patriation of our Constitution, from the building of Medicare, to the building of the United Nations.

It is the conviction that a community is more than the sum of its members – that it is the institutions, the traditions, and the commitments through which we choose to live together.This is what Louise Arbour has devoted her life to defending and defining. And it is what she will bring to the role she is about to assume.

Before I conclude, we observe that Madam Arbour will succeed an exemplary Governor-General. Her Excellency, the right Honorable Mary Simon has been a steadfast representative of Canada and our institutions at home and around the world. As the first Indigenous person to serve in this role, she’s carried forward a lifetime of advocacy for Inuit rights, for Indigenous self-determination, and for the preservation of our indigenous languages, cultures and identities.

As she has often said, reconciliation is not a project with an end date, but a responsibility to be lived – day after day, in how we listen, how we learn, and how we act.Mary Simon championed literacy and education as foundations of self-determination. She elevated national conversations on mental health, particularly in northern and Indigenous communities, bringing visibility to challenges too often overlooked, and dignity to those too often unheard.Her legacy will endure not only in her service, but in how she served – with grace, resolve, and an unshakeable belief in Canada’s greatness.

To our Excellency Governor General Simon, to His Excellency Whit Fraser, to your family, thank you for your extraordinary service to Canada. At a time when much of the world is buffeted by crises and the worst are full of passionate intensity, Canada’s history, our institutions and our enduring traditions matter more than ever. We retain our convictions. We reinforce our institutions. As Mary Simon has, Louise Arbour will represent the best of Canada to Canadians and to the world. A country that’s a bastion of security, prosperity and justice, a beacon to a world lost at sea. A Canada that is clear eyed about the challenges we face and steadfast in the values we uphold. A Canada that’s not just strong but good. A Canada that’s not just prosperous but fair. A Canada that is not just for some most of the time, but for all, all of the time.

Madame Arbour, on behalf of the Government of Canada, and on behalf of all Canadians, thank you for agreeing, once again, to serve our country.