Prime Minister António Costa has invited his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, to visit Portugal for the Web Summit in November and promised that his government will make gradual improvements to Portuguese consular services.

António Costa ended his five-day official visit to Canada in Montreal the same way he began Wednesday in Ottawa, with a meeting with Portuguese communities.

In his last speech before returning to Lisbon, the Portuguese Chief Executive conveyed the message that Portuguese-Canadian relations have now deepened and that he invited the Prime Minister of Canada to visit Portugal.

“I had the opportunity to invite the Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau to go to Portugal, because I want to continue on the other side of the Atlantic to strengthen this relationship that we have just started. I was very touched by the affectionate look he has on the Portuguese community,” he said, in a first compliment to his Canadian counterpart.

António Costa then recounted what happened late Friday afternoon in Toronto when, after a windstorm, the building where the meeting with the Portuguese community was to take place lost power .

A situation that led the organization of the Canadian security service to advise against the presence of Justin Trudeau at this event.

“But he [Justin Trudeau] made it a point to go and greet each member of our community with hugs and kisses in an area where there was natural light,” the Portuguese Prime Minister reported.

In his address, the head of the national executive also promised to improve the efficiency of consular services after years of the country’s financial bailout.

“Portugal experienced a major economic crisis, which had consequences, especially in the country’s ability to provide better consular services, but fortunately we have turned that page and are now growing, creating jobs, with a deficit and public finances under control to start improving even more the quality of our consular services,” he said to applause.

After lunch at the Ferreira restaurant in downtown Montreal and a visit to the Canadian Center for Architecture, where an exhibition on the work of Siza Vieira is being held, António Costa said goodbye to Canada at the Alexandra Hall.

António Costa took the opportunity to recall that the 1974 Olympics took place in Montreal – an event which he says marked him forever due to Carlos Lopes’ run in the ten thousand meters final, during where he won the silver medal.

“It was the silver medal that later took him to gold in the marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics,” he said, then heard a “viva le Sporting” from the crowd .

All this happened minutes after the end of the “derby” between Sporting and Benfica in Lisbon – a zero-goal draw that benefited the “lions” in the race for second place in the Portuguese football league.

On club issues, António Costa only noted that today FC Porto fans are “celebrating the footballing title”, while Benfica fans will be able to “mourn their sorrow”.

He then moved away from the football theme and compared the Portuguese community to successful national marathon runners, which drew a long round of applause.

“This history of the marathon and long-distance running in Portugal has a lot to do with the history of Portuguese emigration, because it is the same resilience, the same combativeness, the same determination and the same fighting capacity”, concluded the Prime Minister.