Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Commencement of 2025 World Canals Conference in Buffalo During the Erie Canal Bicentennial

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the 2025 World Canals Conference has commenced in Buffalo, during the Erie Canal's Bicentennial year. Bringing an international audience together of canal enthusiasts, historians, and waterway experts, the group will celebrate and discuss the rich history and future of canal systems worldwide, with a special focus on New York State's iconic Erie Canal.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page has photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Good morning, fellow canal lovers. First of all, I'm gonna give you some local advice. Those of you who've come from out of our state and across the world, if you want people here in Buffalo to think you're a local, wherever you go, don't say hello. Don't say goodbye, just say Go Bills. Wanna practice that? Go Bills. And no matter what your accent is, they'll be convinced that you are a Western New Yorker.

So, it's a huge point of mine also to have a chance to recognize the leaders of this particular gathering. I know you gather all over the world, but Buffalo is just beaming with pride that you've selected this for the 2025 conference. Anne McCaffrey, you heard her a couple minutes ago, a real passionate aficionado of the canal system as a Mayor who represented some of the most challenging locks. It's a double lock. You're going to see this tomorrow on our entire system. So, she did so much to promote this. We had the orchestras and symphonies play on barges and celebrations. So, she did an incredible job there. So, it makes sense to have her so involved in this as well.

Keith Belanger, our honorary Co-Chair, also a significant driver of economic growth here in the city of Buffalo and understands the importance of the canals. Also, a major boater himself. We have JC Seneca, the President of the Seneca Nation is here as well, so let's acknowledge him, very, very proud to have representation from our friends from the Seneca Nation.

I'm gonna run through a few names of people from my team. We haveour Commissioner of DMV, Mark Schroeder, fellow Buffalonian. Justin Driscoll, President, CEO of the Power Authority. The Power Authority funds our Canal system. So, be really nice to everybody you see from the Power Authority, including John Koelmel as well, our Chair. Brian Stratton, the Chair of the Canal Corporation, who traveled every inch of this canal and loves it-it's all he dreams about at night is canals, canals, canals. I know this for a fact. And Joan Kesner, who's the Chair of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation. Let's give them all a round of applause.

Alright, let's have some fun here. I'm just tickled that you're here. I have been Governor for four years now, and one of the first announcements I was able to make in 2022 was that we will be welcoming the World Canals Conference to not just New York state, but literally my hometown of Buffalo, and I live walking distance from here on the water. So, I could look at Lake Erie all the time and chart my next journey, often through the Erie canals that you'll see tomorrow in Lockport. But I also understand what an economic powerhouse it is not just for us, but for all of your communities - all of you. What's so special about this gathering is you all have your own passion because you have a unique form of infrastructure and a trailway, a waterway known as your canal, but they're all so different. And what you're going to see when you explore our canal system is something that was viewed as a pretty crazy idea 200 years ago. There was a Governor and maybe you've heard this story over and over, but I'm gonna tell it because I'm the Governor.

DeWitt Clinton, Governor at the time, was able to be contacted and read an article by a guy named Jesse Hawley, who was a prisoner. So what's the prisoner gonna do talking to the Governor of the State of New York? What does he have on his mind? The reason he is in prison, Jesse Hawley, is that he's in debtor prison. He was a farmer who lost money because he could not get his crops to market. And while he is sitting in jail with a lot of time on his hands, sketches out the concept of digging this enormous ditch to connect this little sleepy village known as New York City, all the way up the Hudson River to our State capital of Albany, which has been there for 400 years, Albany's been in existence, all the way over to Buffalo and open up the Midwest and commercial markets. The idea was so insane that literally Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, when they asked for federal money to help, basically questioned his sanity and maybe the Governor should be locked up. That's what politics were like back then. They haven't gotten much better these days. But that's another subject.

So, a President questioning a Governor yes, it's gone on before, but DeWitt Clinton was so committed to this concept that they funded it themselves here in the State of New York. And if you wanna get even more detail, everybody walking the streets here knows the history, you'll see it down at Canalside in our facility we built there and just opened up this summer. The economic impact shaved the cost of transporting goods by a hundred fold. The cost of shipping to get products all the way down the Mississippi River. Think about this, you can go from Buffalo through the Great Lakes down the Mississippi River. It just opened up all these new ways, and so I've always viewed canals - It's just a place of imagination and unlimited possibilities when you have people behind them who just believe in the great potential of our waterways. And it's a huge economic driver for many of your countries and states. I know that.

And yes, ours is 200 years old. We're proud of that. It's not quite what it used to be anymore. It's more recreational, but we still sometimes have to use it when there's major shipments that have to go through, like for example, in New York, we really like beer. Okay, let's just put that out there. We're big beer drinkers. And Genesee Brewing, which has a beautiful facility in Rochester on the canal, was trying to figure out how to bring these 12 huge fermentation tanks from China to get to their place in Rochester. They figured out the best way was to transport these on huge barges. It was like a tourist attraction, everybody hanging out on the bridges and watching all these tanks that were gonna be used to create some of the best beer in the nation right here in New York through these tanks. So, people watched this, it was extraordinary.

Just recently, we're redoing a beautiful park on the waterfront here, and they wanted to have this amazing sculpture of a bridge brought from Italy. How do you get a gigantic sculptured bridge from Italy all the way to Buffalo? The answer is - it's always been there for 200 years - you bring it on the Erie Canal. So, those are just two examples of where feats have been accomplished that otherwise would not be there. So, I can go on and on about how much I'm investing in it. I'm just gonna tell you it's a hell of a lot of money. We're putting a lot of money into the system, but it's every penny's worth because it's part of our identity. It's part of who we are. It's a huge point of pride. The engineering, the brilliance that went behind the creation of the Erie Canal is still studied in engineering schools today because it was so farfetched and impossible to dig a ditch across the state.

And I'm Irish, anybody here from Ireland? Okay, maybe next time. Okay. But I know a lot of people of Irish descent were not able to get many jobs, but they put a shovel in their hands and turned them into diggers. And so there were lots and lots of them. This is showcased in Rochester, in Lockport as well, but it was dangerous - hundreds of people lost their lives, whether it was snake bites or illnesses that spread so quickly. So, it was dangerous work but now when you go by now, it just looks of course, we would always have done this.

And I know a little bit more about it than most, even though DeWitt Clinton claims to have gone, back in this time, he covered the whole length. He went from Buffalo down to New York City, 360 some miles. I've gone over 500 miles on the canal. I beat that past record. Okay? A little round applause there. That's me on a not enormous sized boat going through 32 locks even when there's tornado warnings and we're stuck in the channel and the water's going up and down and the wind's blowing and banging against you, and my husband's did you really just lose the pole in the water? I know I didn't mean to. Okay, I'll hold on to the ropes in my head. It is tough. Does anybody have a real working canal that you've traversed? It's not for the faint of heart, but it took me to explore corners of this state - little tiny communities that were nothing before the canal. And literally they're every 10 miles apart because that's how far you had to have a rest stop. Not for the people, but for the mules that were pulling the barges. So, there's these charming communities throughout the entire state, and for a long time they lost their luster when the canal freight was basically replaced by railroads. That was hard. But we've invested money into these communities to give them back the charm and the sense of history and a sense of place. And so every one of them is so unique and so special. And as someone who would pull up when it got dark, after going through a tough day, sometimes 13 hours on the canal, my husband and I would pull up and we'd tie off and literally just walk into town and have pizza with the locals and talk to them and get a chance to get to know them. And I will share this with you, I guarantee there are a lot of really political differences between us. One time I got trapped in the middle of a Trump flotilla, but we had nowhere else to go, and by the end of the night we're sharing beers. We're talking sports, we're talking how much we love the canal, and so I believe that this is a bridge as well. People of all backgrounds can understand the significance, the joy, the magistry of our canals. And so that's what I take from that experience. It toughened me up, which I need to have for this job. So, I'm as tough as you need to be, but it's an extraordinary experience for me to do that.

But also, let me close with this. What we saw through our history as people, historians wonder why New York State was a significant place in many of the movements, the Suffrage Movement, Women's Right to Vote, which was hard fought in our state or the elevation of Native American rights, and understanding of what had been taken from them and how much influence their cultures have had in our state. Also, the Underground Railroad, which was how slaves were freed during the Civil War, a little tiny person named Harriet Tubman, used to bring slaves up during the night, at her own risk. She went back and forth. She was a real hero, and she settled in Central New York. And what you found out was there was these, and the Quakers were involved. There's all these religious groups and people sharing ideas. How did they all get to the center of New York? The Erie canal. The Erie canal is not just flowing water, it was flowing ideas, people from everywhere who wanted to espouse progressive values and to lift communities up and to put New York State on a course that we still are on today.

We're so proud of our progressive values. It started because someone brilliant back in the time had the courage to do this. The communities accepted it and our state became the epicenter of society changing ideas, and I trace it all back to the Erie Canal. So, I'm gonna continue my investments. There you go, team. You heard it here. Okay, there you go. And again, so grateful for Anne and Keith for chairing this event. I hope you all get a chance to get out and explore. Get down, you'll get down to Canalside, you'll go, there's a children's museum that even if you're an adult, you're just gonna think it's incredible because it showcases partially the history of Buffalo as well.

So, get out and wander. I know you're all sitting here having to listen to a whole bunch of politicians. You're like, oh my God, when do they stop? But get out and explore, embrace the energy and the enthusiasm that we have for the fact that you are here, right here, right now. And I'm so proud, again, to host this conference. I'll be very involved as we continue our celebration of 200 years. But it's not just our story that we keep bragging about here. It is your story as well, wherever you came from. You are here because you believe in something as we do - a shared value that our canals have value, they also have to be invested in. They matter for economic development and tourism and recreation, and all of us will leave here regardless of where you came from, what your political beliefs are, united in the belief that there's nothing greater than our canals. Thank you very much everybody.

And with that let me present recognition to Keith and Anne. Please come up. Let's give them a round of applause. They're leaders of this conference. Anne McCaffrey, Keith Belanger with gratitude from the State of New York. I have really nice long proclamations and if anybody wants to read every word, raise your hand. Seeing none, all those in favor say no, we're not going to read it. But I'm going to present it to them and in recognition of their extraordinary contributions to this incredible event.

Contact the Governor's Press Office