At the 2025 Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers Leadership Summit, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Québec Premier François Legault signed a Declaration of Intent to expand New York–Québec cooperation in clean energy, trade, innovation and research—despite a federal shutdown in Washington. Hochul cited progress on the Champlain Hudson Power Express with Hydro-Québec, the MicroBird takeover in Plattsburgh that preserved 300 jobs after Nova Bus’s exit, and $11 million to bolster border security. She spotlighted tourism and cross-border commerce recovery, MTA-linked manufacturing, New York’s $500 million Empire AI initiative, the Micron megaproject in Syracuse and collaboration on critical minerals to reduce reliance on China. The governor also noted renewed momentum for offshore wind serving New York City. The message: state-to-province ties remain durable and growth-focused, anchoring regional competitiveness in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence corridor.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Bonjour, good to see everyone this morning. Thank you David and a reminder, this is my 10th anniversary of attending these events and knowing that there’s turnover among Governors and certainly Premiers — I may be the longest standing person who’s been at these events and want to welcome all of you and thank particularly Premier Legault and his entire team for the incredible gracious and warm welcome.
This is described as a magical city, and we were having the most wonderful time to reconnect with friends and as I’m going to say often, reset relationships. I want to give a shout out to my American friend, a great leader of this organization serving as Chair, Gretchen Whitmer and her team for keeping the spotlight on the shared opportunities, but also the shared challenges. And pointing out that we still have some of the same problems we talked about over the last decade as I was attending these meetings earlier, but keeping a focus on it – never giving up on what we can do together. So I’m going to thank Gretchen Whitmer again for her support.
And it goes without saying for centuries, literally centuries, we have been the best of friends supporting each other in trade deals and sharing culture–sharing well not sharing, but having some sports rivalries. Anybody from Ontario here? Do not talk about baseball today until four o’clock today and everything’s going to change.
I know that wasn’t the friendliest thing to say, but I am a New Yorker — so you have to forgive that. But we’ve done so much together. And I know that there’s been a sense of betrayal because I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada and its proud people. Spent a lot of time in Ontario as a Buffalonian, a lot of our newscasters and coverage of sports overlapped dramatically.
So we knew the same hockey heroes and celebrated them as well. So I understand it’s had a ripple effect on how people have been behaving. Not just on companies and governments, but just individuals. And the numbers are showing that our border crossings have declined since January of this year, February — in a way that is not sustainable for friends to thrive and we are vested in each other’s success.
We need to continue finding a path to change that dynamic. And it has had a negative effect on trade. We’ve got our largest trading partner in Canada. New York shares over 400 mile border with Ontario and Québec, something that we think is really special. The opportunities that we’ve had to do so much together. So I’m committed as Governor to restoring our previous relationship to perhaps January 19th. Let’s call it Project January 19 and get that over the line.
Because I feel the effects of what is happening with the hostile rhetoric, the tariffs. I do roundtables with businesses in what we call the North Country. I know Canada believes it’s the North Country, but we have our own little North Country in New York as described as that triangle part of our state that touches particularly on the Québec boundaries here. And the businesses there are feeling it. People are not coming to the little tourist towns and the ski resorts last winter and the summer places like Clayton, which are always so robust with Canadians coming across and the synergy there. It’s been missing and I feel like there’s kind of a hole in our heart as a state — when we don’t have that vibrancy and that friendship that’s long defined us. We have built partnerships that are enduring beyond this temporary blip in our relationship, and please know that I view it that way, especially in the energy space. And I just had a fabulous meeting with the president of Hydro Québec — to talk about what we’re doing next year.
I mean this is something—the Champlain Hudson Power Express line, that first came to my attention as Lieutenant Governor about a decade ago. And I didn’t sense that there was as much interest in our entire administration in this project, but I saw the promise of this.
And even when we weren’t talking about an energy crisis or shortages or resiliency at that time. Leaders are called upon to be forward thinking and see what the landscape could possibly be 10 or 20 years down the road. And that’s required of all of us. So at the time, even in that secondary role I wanted to continue those conversations, but it gave me great pleasure when I became Governor — unexpectedly August of 2021 to literally a few months later announce that we would strike an agreement with Hydro Québec and bring clean, renewable power to over 1 million New York homes. I mean, this is something that we’re going to hit a major milestone next spring. I’ll be there, I’m sure our Premier will be there as well. We’ll celebrate that in an incredible way. But that’s just one project that has not wavered or gone offline because of what is happening, and I want to continue looking for those collaborations.
But also, I had the most wonderful experience a few weeks ago to go to a ribbon cutting at a facility in Plattsburgh. MicroBird was literally assuming a facility that had been shutdown just literally the day before, and this is the beautiful transition. When Nova Bus left, MicroBird was right there to step in, saving over 300 good paying jobs. And again, further cementing that despite what’s happening in Washington, our business relationships continue because that mutuality of interest is not going to change.
So we’re going to continue leaning into the opportunities of being a hub for transportation infrastructure. Particularly between Québec and our northern part of our State. And what’s so fabulous about this is I’ve done what I can to ensure that the money is there ensuring that our MTA, the transportation leadership in New York City that oversees the purchasing of trains and our expansion that they’re going to have the money they need to continue those contracts that’ll affect businesses in Québec and in upstate New York. So that’s committed, the money’s there, the work is there, the jobs are there.
So that’s just a continued example of not just in the energy space, but in that space where we are tuning out the noise. You’re tuning out the noise and we’re continuing to work together.
I’m also committed to ensuring security at the border. I’ve committed $11 million to ensuring that our border with Québec in particular and actually Ontario from Western New York are secure.
And there’s been a lot of effort and mass migration, the largest mass migration of humanity since World War II has occurred in our country, had been occurring up in over the last few years, and It’s taken a toll. There’s a lot of impacts on that, but we’re also concerned about making sure that people don’t seize an opportunity to see more avenues for human trafficking or gun trafficking or drug trafficking.
And so we’re committed to securing our borders there as well, and I want to make sure we do that. I will say when it comes to tourism and trade and fostering energy alliances that we as New York, and I’m speaking for New York State alone here, but we’re going to continue to operate more independently of Washington.
So I want to get that message out to your businesses who are trying to decide whether we make that investment or not. We’re going to commit the dollars they’re not. And say “you know what we can work with that out. We know we got Prime Minister Carney’s meeting with the President on Tuesday, and we’ll see what happens there. But at least we know we can count on places like New York and Michigan and Wisconsin and other states who are part of this alliance, who have had the long-term relationships that have been tested and strengthened over time.” That does not change, I’m just trying to nail that point home hard. And as we talked about, I’ve had a lot of conversations about other opportunities and certainly when it comes to the rare earth opportunities and your Premier is so focused on this here in Québec.
I see unlimited potential here. I truly do because it’s also about our nation’s security, both of our nation’s security, against other actors out there who have other political agendas. So what I rather see the deals made for the acquisition and extraction of rare earth minerals between the U.S. and Canada, yes. Because the alternative is China, and I think we should all be aware of that. We have to protect ourselves, not just in this short term blip of history, which we all know is going to be over sometime soon. I’m just trying to be as diplomatic as I can here. Am I succeeding? I don’t know. I’m a little restrained if you see what I usually say in New York.
But I want to make sure that we don’t miss an opportunity right now that’s before us to do something smart that’s going to continue bolstering our innovation economies that we’ve all have. We understand that AI is not going anywhere, It is the future. And to ensure that we have not just the power, the clean power, to ensure that those facilities can go on, not because they themselves create so many jobs, but because of the businesses that’ll come in those regions and be benefited from that artificial intelligence, we’ve leaned into it in New York State with something called Empire AI. We are building a New York State with $500 million of a joint partnership with private sector, public sector, and academia. The largest supercomputer in the entire United States of America, outside a private company to use for public good.
Accessing that power to researchers in medical areas and areas where we’re trying to solve climate issues and be better forecasters of storms and impacts. We’re doing that in New York. So we are true believers in artificial intelligence and how we can harness that, put a lot of money up there. But I also have, I know that I need the rare earth minerals.
To help places like Micron. The largest private sector investment in American history is happening right now in upstate New York in Syracuse. It happened to work out during my first year as Governor made the deal happen. But they have such demand now for supply chain actors and commodities and products like rare earth minerals that the marketplace is literally across the border, and I see that opportunity.
So we need to talk to investors and find out how we can explore and try to get a piece of the action because otherwise we are going to lose out and nothing New Yorkers hate worse than losing. We’re very competitive people.
So I wanted to say we’re going to keep our investments. We admire what you’re also doing in wind and solar. You know people think Hydro Québec is a lot of wind and solar. And we’re going to continue our efforts despite the fact that an offshore wind project that had been in the works for literally a decade, $5 billion investment off the coast of Long Island is almost ready to come online, powering half a million homes in Brooklyn, New York with clean offshore wind. That was shut down back in March because the federal government does not believe in wind and solar.
It’s another whole topic. But we got it going back on and I’m committed to doing this despite the loss in tax incentives, which I think are still important. But we want the industries to know that we are going to continue leaning into this even after this strange period is over.
So I’m just going to say this, I have a lot of notes here. My team writes nice speeches, they really do. But let me just be real, talk straight to you. I propose we settle our differences on the ice, in the ballpark and on the fields, okay? That’s how we can do it. And beyond that, never forget that our destinies are intertwined by geography.
You’ve heard a lot of good remarks this morning that I support about the flow of water from the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway. And I’m a boater, I love these waterways, they bring me such joy. It’s the only place I can clear my head when I’m floating on a boat out in the middle of Lake Erie
It is extraordinary that we have these precious resources up to all of us at this moment in time to protect as others have before, and entrusted us for future generations. So our destinies are intertwined. We are neighbors by geographic destiny, but we are friends by choice and we’ll continue to be friends by choice long after this era is over.
So thank you very much my friends, and look forward to continuing our relationship. Merci beaucoup!
October 5, 2025
Albany, NY
Sources: Governor.ny.gov , Big New York news BigNY.com
Midtown Tribune News
