CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

This week, I joined my G7 counterparts and our countries’ respective Central Bank governors in Bonn to discuss the state of the global economy.

Among the pressing issues we discussed were:

• The rising cost of living and making life more affordable for families and workers;
• The global challenge of inflation, which is in part fuelled by Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine;
• The transition to net-zero and our ongoing fight against climate change;
• Global food and energy security; and
• The continued economic recovery from the pandemic.

I also had productive meetings with:

• The United States Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen;
• Germany’s Federal Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner;
• Chancellor Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom; and
• Managing Director and Chairwoman of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva.

As the G7, we also discussed further support for Ukraine and additional steps we need to take together to hold Russia accountable.

On Ukraine: As the world’s leading democratic economies, we are resolute in our support for Ukraine because we understand the stakes in this conflict. It is a conflict between democracy and dictatorship.

As I hope you’ve seen in the G7 communiqué, the G7 countries are determined to continue targeting the ill-gotten gains of Russian elites around the world through the Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force, which is a G7 initiative.

And we were very clear that Ukraine must win this war.

In order to win the war, Ukraine needs ‒ urgently ‒ further financial support from the world’s democracies.

That is why I am announcing today that Canada will provide a new loan of $250 million to Ukraine. It will be provided through the IMF Administered Account ‒ that is the facility that Canada played a leading role in establishing.

With today’s announcement, Canada has now offered $1.87 billion in financial support to Ukraine. That is separate from and in addition to our military support, our international assistance, humanitarian support, and our support for refugees and immigration.

With the new funding that Canada and our partners committed to this week, the G7 has collectively now provided more than $19.8 billion USD in direct financial assistance to Ukraine in 2022.

This is because we recognize that the Ukrainian government is functional, is viable, and it needs to have funding to continue to operate as the country defends itself from Putin’s illegal invasion.

Let me also point out that, at this meeting, we were joined by Sergii Marchenko, the Ukrainian Minister of Finance, and Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian Prime Minister ‒ they joined us virtually, and I had separate phone calls with each of them.

The work of the G7 is ‒ and will continue to be ‒ critical to ensure that Ukraine has the support it needs to win. We are also doing important work together as the G7 to fight climate change, on international taxation, and to support the world’s economic recovery from the COVID recession.

This week’s meetings in Bonn were an important part of that work.

I’ll just close by thanking Minister Lindner, his team, and the German government for their warm hospitality.

Merci beaucoup.