Former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II at an event in Toronto Saturday, where she was speaking as part of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Appearing at an industry event at the TIFF Bell Lightbox to promote her new Apple TV series Gutsy, Clinton and her daughter Chelsea were interviewed by Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.

Asked by Trudeau what she would ask the queen if she had had the opportunity to include her in their new series about gutsy women, Clinton said she would ask the former monarch where she got the strength to carry out her duties right until the end of her long reign.

“I would say to her, where did you find the continuing resilience, the courage, the gutsiness to do your duty every day, not missing a day, including two days before she died, when she came out to greet the new prime minister,” Clinton said. “And maybe she would be willing to share, you know, some of the ways that she did keep herself going, because the three of us know when you're in the public eye, it's exhausting. And we need all the help we can get.”

Clinton recalled she had “the real pleasure and privilege” of meeting the queen several times and always found her “engaging and curious.”

“She wanted to know about you. She rarely expressed her own opinion, that was not part of the queenly duties. But she was very quick to inquire about what you were thinking and I found her to be just an incredible model of service and leadership, of course duty, but also in her enthusiasm,” Clinton said. “She wasn't somebody who just would go out into public and then retreat.”

In Gutsy, the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and presidential candidate travels with her daughter Chelsea to meet inspirational women, including Goldie Hawn and her daughter Kate Hudson, a nurse who worked at one of the hardest-hit hospitals in New York during the height of the pandemic,  Gloria Steinem, Jane Goodall, Kim Kardashian and others.

Discussing an episode that deals with nature, Clinton mused on the “catastrophe” of her 2016 election loss, and recalled that she had a moment with a stranger she met walking in the woods the following day.

“I saw a young woman, she had a baby on her back, and she had a dog on a leash and she was walking through this preserve near where I live. And when she saw me she burst into tears. And so she and I had a moment together, but we were both there kind of for the same reason; I because I you know, just lost an election, and she because I had just lost an election.”

Clinton quipped “Me too” when an audience member interjected “we’re still crying, Hillary.”

She also briefly discussed, while touching on an episode about “rebel hearts,” her decision to stay in her marriage following her husband’s very public sex scandal as president, calling it “the gutsiest personal thing I ever did.”

Acknowledging that the opposite decision could've been the gutsy choice for someone else, Clinton said she and Chelsea tried in the series “to cover the gambit of the most personal aspects of our lives where yeah, we're called to be gutsy.”

She said that includes speaking with people who have dealt with the loss of a spouse or the end of an engagement, or who have struggled through other personal difficulties.

“I had a wonderful friend, an older friend years ago, who was a pioneering woman doctor and toward the end of her life, she said ‘I’ve loved and been loved and everything else is background music’ and that made such an impact on me.”

In the wide ranging talk at TIFF, the mother and daughter also addressed runaway hatred in the United States, cyber bullying and some of the failures of big tech.

Chelsea Clinton discussed some of the challenges growing up as a "public child" and how strange it is that so many regular kids now face some of the same problems because of social media.

“I think about this a lot now, not only as a parent, but I think about how kind of the experience I had as a public person as a child is now much closer to the experience I think so many children have because so many children are now public people because of their social media networks,” she said.

“They're connected not just to the people that they see, you know, at school or kind of with their sporting events, or in their faith communities or in their neighborhood; they're connected to their friends’ friends’ friends’ friends. It’s very different.”

She said she makes an ongoing decision for herself that “I do not want to live in fear. I do not want to live based on other people's expectations of me, I don't want to live in reaction to other people's opinions or expectations of me.”

Responding to her daughter’s comments, Hillary Clinton added that “we are conducting a massive experiment on children with our technology, and they are consuming technology in a way that has never happened in human history.”

She said increased use of some technologies has been tied to an increase in anxiety, depression, bullying, misogyny and sexism, with people feeling "perfectly free" to say things about you online which they would never say to your face.

She also took aim at tech executives in Silicon Valley for not implementing better controls over the technology.

“I just feel like we are failing our kids,” Clinton said. “I think the tech companies are failing our kids. I think adults are failing our kids. I include all of us in a way because we should have a set of you know, standards or beliefs about screen time and social media.

“And you know, I'm always struck that a lot of the titans of Silicon Valley do not let their own children have screen time.”

She referred to reports that some tech executives have placed clauses in caregiver contracts stating that they will limit screen time for the kids.

“These are the people who have created the algorithms that capture our kids’ minds, that drive them down rabbit holes that create all kinds of difficult experiences for kids who are not old enough to cope with it,” Clinton said. “So I think this is a big, big deal. And if you watch some of the films that have come out about what's happened in the social network and you know, some other films that have portrayed this addiction — it’s bad enough if you live most of your life without being an addict. If you're eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 and you become addicted, where does it lead?”

Clinton also sounded concern about the growing hatred in her country and offered a variety of possibilities as to why it has increased, from dashed expectations of people who believe they missed out on opportunities their country used to afford, to demagogic politicians being rewarded for bad behaviour.

She said there are a variety of solutions that are needed, but highlighted solutions at the ballot box.

“We have to reject fear-filled leadership,” Clinton said. “And that means we have to vote out and vote against people who pit us against each other, and stoke hatred and fear.”

Gutsy is streaming now on Apple TV+.