Biden to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau: 'We need you very, very badly'
REUTERS/Chris Wattie
Vice President Joe Biden said that "genuine leaders" are in short supply and the world needs Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "very, very badly," at a dinner hosted by Trudeau in Ottawa on Thursday night, reports The Globe and Mail.
"The world's going to spend a lot of time looking to you, Mr. Prime Minister, as we see more and more challenges to the liberal international order than any time since the end of World War II," Biden said.
"But I am absolutely confident that we in North America are better positioned than any time since the end of World War II to lead the world, to lead the hemisphere, to move it to a place in a way that we haven't seen."
Biden discussed how there's "a lot of soul-searching," going on in the US - alluding to Donald Trump's election - and said that he's never seen "Europe engaged in as much self-doubt as now."
"And as you look around the world at this ebb and flow, as I've watched in my career, there are periods where the number of genuine leaders on continents are in short supply and when they're in heavy supply," Biden said.
Biden said that the changes that are going to take place in the near future are going to be "astronomical," from curing cancer, to advances in transportation and air travel.
"The progress is going to be made," Biden said. "It's going to take men like you, Mr. Prime Minister, who understand that has to fit within the context of a liberal economic order, liberal international order, where there's basic rules of the road."
"If I had a glass, I'd toast you by saying vive le Canada, because we need you very, very badly."
REUTERS/Chris Wattie
Here's a partial transcript of Biden's remarks, from The Globe and Mail:
"And as you look around the world at this ebb and flow, as I've watched in my career, there are periods where the number of genuine leaders on continents are in short supply and when they're in heavy supply. Right now, right now, I've never seen and I've, in my area of so-called expertise has been the former Soviet Union, Russia now, and, and Europe, I've never seen Europe engaged in as much self-doubt as they are now.
The world's going to spend a lot of time looking to you, Mr. Prime Minister, as we see more and more challenges to the liberal international order than any time since the end of World War II. You and Angela Merkel, there's a lot of, there's a lot of soul searching going on in Europe, and you saw some of it in my country. But I am absolutely confident that we in North America are better positioned than any time since the end of World War II to lead the world, to lead the hemisphere, to move it to a place in a way that we haven't seen.
The opportunities are immense, immense, from the cure of cancer to, by the time your children are able to go to the airport on their own, they're going to be flying subsonically at 22,000 miles an hour. The changes that are going to take place are going to be astronomical. The progress is going to be made. It's going to take men like you, Mr. Prime Minister, who understand that has to fit within the context of a liberal economic order, liberal international order, where there's basic rules of the road.
We're going to get through this period because we're Americans and we're Canadians. And so [if] I had a glass, I'd toast you by saying vive le Canada, because we need you very, very badly. Thank you."
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