Justin Trudeau

Good afternoon. Mr. President, fellow delegates, and friends, it's an honor to be with you today, and it's wonderful to be here in the great city of New York. Once again, this week, New Yorkers showed us how to be resilient and resolute in the face of violent extremism. On behalf of everybody in this room, let me say directly to the people of New York, you are a model to the world, and we thank you.

Exactly one year ago, Canada was in the middle of a long and closely fought election campaign. 78 days on the road, and I can assure you in Canada, there are 78 days worth of roads. It is the responsibility of a leader to spend time with the people they were elected to serve.

If you want the real stories, you have to go where people live. Coffee shops and church basements, mosques and synagogues, farmer's markets, public parks. It was in places like that that I got the best sense of what Canadians were thinking and how they were doing.

And through the politeness, because we Canadians are always polite, even when we're complaining I learnt a few things. I talked with people my age who were trying to be hopeful about their future, but found it tough to make ends meet even when they were working full time.

I heard from young Canadians who were frustrated, who told me that they couldn't get a job because they don't have work experience, and they can't get work experience because they don't have a job. I heard from women and girls who still face inequality in the workplace and violence just because they are women, even in a progressive country like Canada.

Who are working hard to give their children every chance in life, every chance to be successful, but who were afraid that their efforts would not be enough. I had the opportunity to share a meal with friends who are retired, who'd worked hard all of their lives, and who are now having to go to food banks. I've had too many troubling conversations with Canadians over recent years.

But they also made something clear to me. Canadians still believe in progress, or at least they believe that progress is possible. But this optimism is also mixed with a great number of concerns.

And Canadians are not the only ones to feel like this. These feelings are present everywhere. This anxiety is a reality.

When leaders are faced with citizens' anxiety, we have a choice to make. Do we exploit that anxiety or do we allay it? Exploiting it is easy, but in order to allay it, we need to be prepared to answer some very direct questions.