governor mcauliffe: i want to thank the vice president. we give him one more round of applause. \[applause] governor mcauliffe: thank him to address the governors and understand the challenges that governors have in dealing with all of the issues and i appreciate the discussion of the opioid crisis which every single governor deals with on a daily basis. i will like to introduce, the first time in n.g.a. history we have had a head of state address the national governors association and only fitting that we have a canadian prime minister to address us today, because in america, you think of that relationship we have with canada, not only the gigantic border that we share together, but also the friendship. i do not believe there is a better bilateral relationship between two countries in the entire globe than exists between canada and the united states of america. and i want to thank the prime minister, who has stepped out and led on such important issues of dealing with climate change, how to deal with extremism, working with us here in america. i want to thank the prime minister, making sure that canada is open and welcoming to everyone. he has been a fighter to protect women's rights and protect the rights of the lgbt community. he understands when you are opened and welcoming, good things happen and economies grow. and i thank his leadership on the economy. our top trading partner and we have to grow and create jobs. i personally as the governor of virginia want to personally thank the prime minister to the 600,000 canadians who came to virginia and spent $214 million. they bought our beer, our wine, our peanuts and went to our beautiful mountains and went to virginia beach. you come to virginia beach, which don't have sharks. we have dolphins and they pick up your children and give them rides and drop them back off. \[laughter] governor mcauliffe: every governor has a story of how important canada is. it is my pleasure on behalf of all the governors to introduce for the first time ever, a head of state, canadian prime minister trudeau. \[cheers and applause] prime minister trudeau: thank you. thank you. vice president pence, governors, friends, honored guests, good afternoon. it is my sincere privilege to be here with you today to talk about some of the values we have in common and some of the solutions of the challenges we all face. governor mcauliffe, thank you for your kind words of introduction and your thoughtful opening remarks. governor romando and thank you for your ocean state hospital. it is the perfect summer. i'm a little bit flattered and surprised that so many of you in the audience have chosen to be here rather than at the beach. maybe that's on the agenda this weekend or maybe like me, you agree with wallace stevens that perhaps the truth depends on the walk around the lake. i have to tell you, wallace stevens is my favorite american poet. he worked in insurance up the road in hartford, connecticut and at night he wrote the most thoughtful poetry that our world has ever seen. as i get to know this beautiful historic corner, low stonewalls, the apple orchards and spectacular ocean vistas, i have been thinking a lot about wallace stevens. in his poem, he declares, i am what is around me and thinks about home and what it means and how we define it. of course, home begins with family. it extends out from there, to school and places of worship, workplace, community, cities, state and country. but there is an aspect of home that goes beyond our national borders, at least beyond the canada-u.s. border, which is unlike any other. that is the idea and the reality of the common north american home. this is where new foundlanders took in stranded american air travelers after 9/11 as chronicled in the broadway play, which you should see. new englanders rushed to help their cousins after the halifax explosions in 1917. we saw it a few weeks when the plymouth to newport sailing winds got hit and ships and planes went into rescue mode. that is what friends and neighbors do for one another. we are there for each other. we step up. the canada-u.s. border is sometimes referred to the longest undefended border in the world. that's actually wrong. our shared border is very well defended. we defend it together against common threats. from norad, the only joint command relationship in the world, to nato to counterterrorism, to basic street-level policing, canadians and americans work shoulder-to-shoulder to keep each other safe as long a as we can remember and further back than that, we have done this. and that is the context into which i would like to say about canada's outreach to the united states this year, which has been described as un-canadian, exceptionally canadian, unprecedented, highly predictable and perhaps most colorfully a doughnut. and i think you governors are all the sprinkles. my friends, i'm here to tell you, our continuing conversation with all of you is none of those things. not at all. on the contrary. it is consistent and solid through and through. and i need to highlight the work of two individuals here as being exemplary throughout this process. canada's minister of foreign affairs and our ambassador to the united states. thank you both for your terrific work. \[applause] prime minister trudeau: we know they are not alone in this, it extends to all levels of governance and society, from my continuing constructive dial ocean that president trump and vice president pence and cabinet ministers, to meetings between state governors and premiere of ontario, to conversations between municipal leaders to business and nongovernmental organizations and to the thousands of personal and business ties that form the bedrock of our national bond. during my time in politics, i noticed this, pundits, and i say this with the greatest of respect and affection to our friends in the media, really seem to enjoy the word strategy. if you have a plan, just a plan, anyone can have a plan, but if you call it a strategy or suddenly journalists are leafing through the art of war and making chest. and has the effective of making the obvious at least complex and makes for an interesting story. but our strategy, our plarn, is actually -- plan, is extremely straightforward. canada is a confident, creative, resourceful and resource-rich nation. we are wealthy and influential country by world standards. we are a country of 35 million people living next door to roughly 10 times our size and the world's only superpower. my father, prime minister pierre trudeau once compared this to sleeping next to an elephant. while you, my american friends, may be an elephant, canada is no mouse. more like a moose. \[laughter] prime minister trudeau: strong and peaceable, but still massively outweighed. we need to work harder to make our points, to advocate for the interests of canadian families in a way that will connect down here. that applies across the range of our national interests, from the fight against climate change, to job creation, to our common defense. because, let's face it, this is another truth about good neighbors. sometimes we take each other for granted. sometimes the very dependability and the ease of a relationship can lead to us paying too little attention. when that happens, the principals invariably live to regret it. we in canada decided we not let that happen with our relationship with the united states of america. and if you would allow me to say that to the folks back home, because it is important -- \[speaking french] prime minister trudeau: when i talk about the importance of maintaining this relationship, i talk about it as a collective. i say we, because this sentiment extends throughout the cabinet and caucus i lead, but it is actually bigger than our government and political party. there is an extraordinarily high degree of support for this across canadian society. and i note we have representatives from two of our major plig parties, mike flake, brenda and as well as senators bob and mike. hello and thank you all for being here. \[applause] as i was saying, the canadian-u.s. relationship is far too important for us to assume that americans are as focused on it as we are, focused how interlinked our economies have become and how crucial it has become for the security of both sides of this border, especially for the middle class and those working hard to join it. given the imminent modernization of the north american free trade agreement, which we welcome of course, we feel compelled to tell you canada's story as it relates to the united states. it's a great story. and not just for the 9 million american jobs whose jobs are depenlt but for all americans. now some of you may have heard that last number before along with the fact that 2/3 of american states has canada is the top exporter market. we are repeating those numbers to u.s. audiences to every chance we can get. the export number is true for a majority of the states represented here today, including alabama, arkansas, kentucky, maryland, new hampshire, north carolina, north dakota, rhode island, south dakota, vermont and virginia and wisconsin. \[applause] prime minister trudeau: canada is the u.s.' biggest best customer by far. we are a bigger customer than china by roughly $152 billion, bigger than japan and the u.k. no one else comes close. canada buys more from the u.s. than china, japan and u.k. combined. we are polite in our relentlessness. and sharing that message. beginning in my regular dialogue of president trump and fanning out from there, and let me tell you why. this is the most successful economic partnership in the history of the world. it's worth about a trillion dollars each year and most importantly, it's well balanced. more broadly, the north american free trade zone is the biggest economic zone in the worldcom prizing $19 trillion regional market of 470 million customers. the united states, canada and mexico and canada account for more than a quarter of the world's g.d.p. since the trilateral agreement went into 1994, u.s. trade with the partners has tripled. that accounts for millions of middle-class jobs for canadians and americans. free trade has worked. it's working now. and those ties have grown well beyond direct trade. canadians pay more than $500 million annually in property tax in the florida alone. \[laughter] prime minister trudeau: and another 25,000 homes in arizona are canadian-owned. something to do with the weather, i suspect. but nafta isn't perfect. no such agreement never is. we think it should be updated and modernized as it has been a dozen times over the past quarter century. and i have every expectation that it will be to the ultimate benefit of working people in all three partner countries. and i have to add this. we have been gratified by the serious, respectful response that our outreach has met at all levels of american government. we thank our counterparts in the trump administration for that and we thank all of you, the relationship between our countries is historic. it is a model to the world. it is of critical importance for people on both sides of the border that we maintain and indeed improve. we must get this right. and sometimes getting it right means refusing to take the politically tempting shortcuts, more trade barriers, more local content provisions, more preferential access for home-grown players and government procurement, for example, does not help working families over the long-term or even the midterm. such policies kill growth. and that hurts the very workers these measures are no, ma'am -- these measures are nominally intended to protect. and once we travel down that road and become the tit for at that time and race for the bottom, all sides lose. canada doesn't want to go there. we want a thinner border for trade and not a thicker one. let me repeat that in french. \[speaking french] prime minister trudeau: there are some really great arguments to be made to keep our borders thin even when we cross border law enforcement that makes canadians and americans safer and our partners in michigan and ohio know well the case of magna international, a global international parts supplier founded in 1957. magna employs nearly 140,000 workers in 29 countries. half of those workers are here in north america. and magna has 65 facilities in the united states. 60 in canada and 29 in mexico. and here's the point. magna's supply chain spans the border. to a car part, the border is invisible. car parts are imported into more complex components. upper-crust members and imported into michigan for assembly into a carrier and full frontal module in ohio. magna sends the module to chrysler for final assembly and chrysler finishes it around the world. that's team work, my friends. the parent company of a steel company and employs canadians and americans. it has plants in maryland and new hampshire provide jobs that are vital to their communities. its market is the construct industry, which is a north american-wide industry, by the way. there are literally too many examples of this tom name, whether it's cn in louisiana or hydro quebec in maine or countless other enterprises and projects across the states. canadian energy, ingenuity and capital are there helping you build america, just as american ingenuity and capital are in canada helping us build our country. and this ultimately is why i have such confidence in our shared future. and in the best efforts of every leader in this room and in washington, to nurture this relationship, to make it even better, we really are all in this together. and the ambassador remarked on the high degree of cooperation and college atlanta of the state governors he talked to including many of you. but the pragmatic approach crosses party lines. and i know that's because as governors, you face common problems and share many of the same goals. i know that your focus on creating the conditions for good, well-paying jobs for the middle class in your states, whether republican or democrats in this economy, that's most likely your very first priority. guess what? it's my first priority as well. president trump has told us it is his first priority. we all have this in common. this challenge, how do ensure benefits of commerce and trade are more broadly shared so that every family can look forward to a brighter future is among the most fundamental of our time. my friends, i believe to my core that the most important challenge that we face as elected leaders is that of creating lasting conditions for prosperity for all of our people in this, our shared north american home. by virtue of our geography and our interlinked economies, this is what we are called together within a modernized, renewed and strengthened north american free trade agreement. so i will leave you with this, let us meet this challenge. let us keep talking as neighbors and friends should. let us roll up our sleeves. let's get to work and let's keep making history together. \[speaking french] \[cheers and applause] >> mr. prime minister, that was a spec tech killer speech. -- that was a spectacular speech. please give him another hand. i have the privilege of asking the first question, mr. prime minister. as governor mcauliffe said, we governors have waited 108 years for a foreign head of state to address us and that is a lot of governors through the state -- through the years. why us and why now? >> i think one of the things we are seeing -- there is an immediate context and a broader one. the immediate context is the talk of nafta, and the benefits and challenges around it. sitting back and hoping it all works out is not the canadian way. that are toors harsh for us to be able to do that so we reach out and we think and we plan. we thought this would be a great opportunity to step up our engagement across all different levels of the u.s. administration. as many of you know, we were proactive in connecting with president trump and his administration as they got up and running. but we also realized that connecting that are with congress come at reaching out to states across the country and working with governors is something that happens every day, at all levels of this relationship that we should be more thoughtful and delivered about. that was the specific context. but general context, is that we are in a world that is more interdependent and interconnected and one in which people are more aware of the challenges that our communities are facing and more eager to see people working hard, rolling up their sleeves, to try to address their worries about their jobs, their future and the future of their kids. this level of interconnection and pulling of energies to meet these challenges is part of what makes -- as part of what citizens hope to see from their leaders. >> thank you, mr. prime minister for being with us here today. we appreciate everything you said earlier. what we are trying to do with this conference, it has a big international player to a. you have spoken, we have folks and folksam here, from china, japan, and vietnam with the emphasis being that we want governments to deal directly with us to grow their economies. there are conflicting messages coming from washington. i just returned from a seven nation tour. ist i have tried to convey come directly to the states and we will do business with you. i would ask you today, what advice would you give us. you are already our number one trading partner. as you envision the next 5-10 years, what advice would you give us governors to increase the business we do with canada? all, to reflect on what a lot of people take for granted on how easy the relationship is with canada. -- and that story goes on both sides of the border. i remember an american ambassador that explained to me that one of the first things he did was across the country, to drum up more business with the u.s. a number of people said to him that hes working, should think more internationally. but they said they do not do international sales, we just sell to the states. in the things we take for granted in terms of the easy proximity is something we have to be deliberate and awful about and look for opportunities. look for the complementarity's in our economies. and think about reaching out. encourage your business community, your chambers of commerce to go look at export possibilities, to welcome visiting delegations from canada and to make canada the first coming easy step towards the global economy for many of your small businesses. global think of a economy, we think of the communications revolution. it is dust as easy to sell your small business products across the street as it is to sell it around the world. you just set to shift your thinking. if you can open your engagement rateat level, of our thinking about engaging with canada, the opportunities there, it becomes easier to play on the global economy. on the flipside, the voices that governors have in the american system towards the federal government but also connected with folks on the ground in your communities. whether that is business leaders or ordinary families and workers. you are better connected to some folks in washington to the reality of people in their day to day lives. bridges to show the benefits of global perspective and ensuring through the policy mechanisms that you have that are beingf growth distributed and shared fairly amongst your citizens. that is something the governors have been and can continue to be active on. >> i think we have time for a couple of questions. if any of our governors would like to ask the prime minister -- governor rolando? was ane minister, that extraordinary speech and book him again to rhode island. talkingnt a lot of time about the opioid overdose crisis in america. here in my own state, we have lost over 1000 people to the disease over the years. advice,u offer us your what is working, and any words of wisdom you may have on this issue? >> thank you, the opioid crisis tohitting us hard as well varying degrees across the country. i was pleased it was specifically one of the things president trump and i were able to agree on and coordinate and collaborate action on. when i made my first visit to washington. a number of months ago. something i am glad we are collaborating on because whether it is issues around controlling borders and trying to stem the flow of fentanyl and other looking whether it is at frontline policing or frontline first responders making naloxone more available or whether it is looking at harm reduction, which is something that we have significant success with in canada, which is looking at more safe consumption sites, where people can be in a safer spot where they are going to be able to be treated if they get an overdose from bad product, or overly concentrated opioids. happye solutions we are to talk about and work with you on. obviously, the challenges will vary from region to region, urban location to rural location, but we are beginning to see that what was concentrated inserting areas is communities,road young people, suburban retirees, all sorts of folks across the aretry, and making sure we thoughtful and coordinated in our approach to this crisis. good neighbors, friends and allies we should certainly be doing and i welcome the money that is being put forward, but mostly the goodwill of people who are realizing this is a very serious health crisis we need to address responsibly and quickly. think we have time for one more. any other governor here have a question? a lot of tough negotiations on the transpacific partnership, which involved canada and the u.s., particularly around the agricultural product. you expect that these negotiations will take up where they left off? canada is a country that has understood from the very beginning how important trade is. we have always had more resources than our small population can use or handle. we have always needed to be able to export our goods around the world. we have been extraordinarily fortunate to share the border with the united states, which means we have always had natural connections with the american we have also looked increasingly at engaging in the world. we just signed a historic free-trade deal with the european union, which we are certainly hoping will come to provisional application within a couple of months, which will have 99% of all tariff terriers disappear between our two countries. barriers disappear between our two countries and will be good for our economies. we will also be interested in trade with asia. i think there's a lot of tpp and in the furthering the momentum that we u.s.'sderstanding the position right now, but also knowing that trade matters and creating opportunities for new markets, creating opportunities for our small businesses and agricultural producers to sell into the growing middle class and asia. we're talking 300 million people who are joining the global middle class, who are very interested in lobsters from ora scotia or maine, cherries from washington state or british columbia. there are opportunities for us to engage with asia, with china or with the tpp countries, that i am very interested in. we are open to engaging and discussing trade. i think the challenge we face yes, as ade is that succession of policymakers promised, trade has led to growth. over the past decade. that is true. the problem, however, is trade has never been a guarantee that that growth would be fairly distributed among citizens. the challenge we have now is responding to citizens who have said, you know what, maybe it hasn't worked out for us the way you promised it and the wealthiest and the big countries seem to be doing -- big companies seem to do well with trade, but the rest of us aren't really seeing the benefit , it becomes really important trades we look at newer deals, signing trade deals, improving deals like nafta, we think right up front about how to make sure that the benefits of the growth that will come tom trade inevitably accrue more of our population. you combine that concern with trade with the reality of automation and ai, we realize are the workplaces changing, we need to be investing in education and skills training and creating confidence amongst our citizens that we are building for their future and not just a short-term bottom line. and that is the challenge of leadership that we all face right now, which is both demonstrating the concrete benefits of policies plans, including trade, but also selling it, reassuring people, showing we can build and solve these challenges together as we have in the past, as opposed to anxietyn to to fear, or anger. that is always the challenge of leadership. people might be worried, might be anxious, concerned about the future. how do we take that energy and pushing forward into policies that are actually going to help our citizens, help our companies, health our economies? and that is whether it is the tpp, whether it is trade deals around the world or whether it this extraordinary relationship between canada and the united states. this is where our energies and our efforts must lie, in demonstrating and focusing on the benefits for all of our citizens. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please again join me in thanking the prime minister for being with us today. [applause] announcer: the national governors association summer meeting, live saturday on c-span starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern, governors talk about computer coding and the importance of computer science in schools. the girls who code ceo, former microsoft ceo and tesla ceo will speak at the governor's closing session. watch the national governors association summer meeting, live on the c-span network. c-span.org and listen live on the free c-span radio app. with the help of our comcast partners, this weekend, the c-span cities tour takes a look concord, massachusetts, where the first shots of the american revolution or fired. less than a century later, the writers revolution takes place and the town becomes home to henry david thoreau and others. saturday at noon eastern on book tv. he will take you inside orchard house release in may alcott wrote the groundbreaking work " little women." where ralph waldo emerson "the oldture." line >> man" is a house of two revolutions. then later, the second american revolution of intellectualism and thought. it is really a house that has such great history to it. on sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, we take you to the northbridge, where the battle of concorde began. to bewhat is considered the beginning of the american revolution because it is here shat americans, colonial and the british encounter one fired,, shots will be lives will be lost on both sides. it is where the colonial mission -- militia was ordered to fire on british troops. world'sr: see the largest collection of materials used during the earliest days of the revolution, displayed at the concorde museum. watch c-span's cities tour of concorde, massachusetts. saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's book tv and sunday at 2:00 p.m. in american history tv on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. july 14 is bastille day, france's national holiday. president trump and the first lady were in paris for the ceremony. here are some highlights from the bastille day parade. this is about an hour. ♪ ♪