The Canadian Press
DAVOS, Switzerland–Investing in Canada and women’s rights were expected to be central themes of a speech by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Trudeau, who arrived there yesterday for his second appearance at the world forum as prime minister, will use the trip to try to convince the world’s richest to invest in Canada, as well as to uphold women’s and workers’ rights.
Trudeau’s agenda in Davos includes various bilateral meetings with political leaders, as well as meetings with the heads of global giants such as Alibaba, Alphabet, and Coca-Cola, in addition to an economic roundtable with business leaders tomorrow.
His scheduled speech at the gathering today likely is to focus on the benefits of gender equality and the advancement of women in the workplace, and serve as a preview of the themes to be raised at the G7 leaders’ summit Canada will host in June.
Trudeau began his day by meeting with Dr. Ulrich Spiesshofer, the president and CEO of the ABB Group, a key player in the robotics, industrial automation, and power grid industries.
ABB Group made an investment in Montreal last year, which Spiesshofer said is going “tremendously well” and that the partnership with Canada is “going the right direction.”
Trudeau also met with James Smith, president and CEO of Thomson Reuters Corp.
Trudeau noted they had met two years ago about the company coming to Canada and they “moved their entire operation from the United States to Toronto.”
The prime minister’s efforts to attract investment in Canada comes amid an uncertain future for the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the sixth round of negotiations to renew the trade pact currently being held in Montreal.
The future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, meanwhile, may be less cloudy that NAFTA.
The Canadian Press has learned the federal government is optimistic a deal may be near that would see Canada agree to the Trans-Pacific Partnership as early as today.
A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ottawa believes a deal can be struck–even though it still would like to see more headway on negotiations surrounding the automotive and cultural sectors.
Negotiations underway in Tokyo are the first high-level talks since leaders of the TPP countries met in November on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Danang, Vietnam, where Canada resisted signing on.
The 11 remaining TPP countries started working to salvage the deal after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew last year.
