Outside forces can sometimes seem overwhelming. My previous jobs at the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England were part of my duties to make regular public reports on what we were doing to manage the economy. And I remember during the financial crisis when there was a real risk of panic, I developed a practice called forward guidance. It was designed to assure people that however difficult the situation seemed on any given day, that we were acting, and importantly, that we would continue to act with overwhelming force against our problems until they were solved. And that's the spirit I'm talking to you about today. Security can't be achieved by ignoring the obvious or downplaying the very real threats that we Canadians face. I promise you I will never sugarcoat our challenges. Instead, I will talk with you directly and regularly about our plan, why we're doing what we're doing, what's working, what isn't, and what we're going to do next. So, here's the current situation.
The world, as I said earlier, is more dangerous and divided. The US has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression. Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses — weaknesses that we must correct. Workers in our industries most affected by US tariffs — in autos, in steel, in lumber — are under threat. Businesses are holding back investments, restrained by the cloud of uncertainty that's hanging over all of us. The US has changed, and we must respond. Canada Strong is our plan to build Canada by Canadians, for Canadians. It will attract new investment so we can build more for ourselves, striking new partnerships abroad so we can sell into new markets. It's about taking back control of our security, our borders, and our future.
There are some who say there's no need for a comprehensive plan. They believe we should wait it out in the hope that the United States will return to normal, that the good old days will come back. But hope isn't a plan, and nostalgia is not a strategy. And the days that young Canadians have known all their lives haven't been that good. Their lifetimes have been marked by a series of shocks and crises from abroad: the Iraq War, the global financial crisis, COVID, and now this. We have to take care of ourselves because we can't rely on one foreign partner. We can't control the disruption coming from our neighbors. We can't bet our future on the hope that it will suddenly stop, but we can control what happens here. We can build a stronger country that can withstand disruptions from abroad, that creates good jobs here at home, that's a leader in this new world with a vast network of reliable allies.
That's the Canada Strong plan we're putting into action. Its goals are ambitious: to catalyze a trillion dollars in investment, to create one Canadian economy out of 13, to build new trade and energy corridors, and to double the size of our clean energy capacity. Yes, that's ambitious. But in a crisis, fortune favors the bold. And there's comfort and confidence to be found in our country's history. After all, our ancestors built an improbable country in an inhospitable land where people were free to live their own lives. When I get into the office, I always look at this statue on my desk. It was given to me by Mike Myers just over a year ago, and this is General Isaac Brock. Brock was a hero who fought and gave his life for our forebears in the War of 1812. Before Canada even existed on paper, it had a shape in Brock's imagination.
Faced with the threat of an American invasion, Brock built alliances across our land and inspired what would eventually become Canada. Others carried that effort forward — people like General de Salaberry, citizens like the Voltigeurs who defended Châteauguay, and Indigenous heroes such as Chief Tecumseh, who united Indigenous nations across the Great Lakes to resist US expansion and protect their lands. They battled together against a common foe, and by doing so, they made our life today possible. This statue of General Brock that I see every morning in the prime minister's office reminds me that when we're united as Canadians, we can withstand anything.
Long before Confederation, our country was forged by Indigenous peoples, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs who mapped their continent and built vast trading networks from coast to coast to coast before the Americans had even left St. Louis. When the Second World War ended, Canada was ambitious, determined, and united in a mission to build big things: the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Trans-Canada Highway, Expo 67, the CN Tower. We built new neighborhoods for hundreds of thousands of veterans and their families, and we opened new universities to launch their careers. We began to make big structural changes in the Canadian economy, and they're all designed to make us stronger at home and less reliant on the United States.
On housing, we're taking a solution from the past, modernizing it, and creating a new housing agency to build affordable homes faster and transform the housing sector in the process. It's already up and running, and though we have a ways to go yet, housing affordability is already improving. For example, asking rents across Canada are at their lowest level in nearly three years. On energy and infrastructure, we're removing roadblocks that have been getting in the way of big projects. On trade, to sell our goods and create new jobs, we're building relationships with other countries. We've signed 20 new deals on four continents in less than a year, because Canada has what the world wants — from energy to education. We have the values to which most of the world aspires, and we're a reliable partner in a world that is anything but.
We're defending Canadian sovereignty by investing in our security and creating an industry to support it. We've embarked on an ambitious new mission to rebuild, rearm, and reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces, with the single largest increase in defense investment in generations. As a result, recruitment to serve our country is already up 13%. This is the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall that Canada will be spending what our allies expect, what we need for our defense, and we're just getting started. Our defense strategy will catalyze $500 billion in investment in Canada over the next decade. Our plan for Canada is gaining momentum, and it will work. But we are not going to fix all our problems tomorrow, and there will be setbacks along the way. The biggest payoffs will take time.
So we know that Canadians need a boost today and a bridge to tomorrow. That's why, as we build a stronger economy, we're focused on lowering costs for Canadians. On day one in office, we cancelled the consumer carbon tax. We cut taxes for 22 million middle-class Canadians, saving a two-income family up to $840 this year. We've cut taxes for first-time home buyers, saving them up to $50,000 on their first homes. We've reduced tolls for vehicles on the Confederation Bridge and cut fares by 50% on ferries in Atlantic Canada. We've launched something called automatic federal benefits. What it does is it will help five and a half million low-income Canadians get the benefits that they're entitled to. We've made the National School Food Program permanent, feeding 400,000 children and saving their parents $800 a year on groceries. We're protecting the social programs that give every Canadian a fair chance to get ahead: child care, dental care, and pharmacare.
We have everything we need here at home. Most of all, we have each other. Canadians are the hardest-working, best-educated people in the world. We care deeply about each other and about our country. And Canadians have responded to this crisis with that spirit. We're buying Canadian. We're investing Canadian. We're exploring Canadian. Canadians everywhere are all in. We all desire a better country. We've been a great neighbor, always willing to help our friends in their times of need. We've stood shoulder to shoulder with our allies in some of the toughest circumstances imaginable — in Kandahar, on Juno Beach, and at Vimy Ridge. We've been a beacon to the world with our values and our ability to always overcome incredible challenges.
The situation today feels unique, but we've faced down threats like this before. And in the weeks and months ahead, I'm going to want to talk with you again. I know you have busy lives, and you don't need daily interruptions from me. But the truth is, there's a lot going on in the world, and not all of it is good, and the stakes could not be higher. The way we're going to get through this is together. There's much forward guidance to be found in our shared history. We will get through this because of who we have always been: a country of tough, decent, caring people — people who grow stronger in adversity. It's our country. It's our future. We are taking back control to build Canada strong. It's already working. Let's keep going. Thank you for your time. I know it's precious.
