Prime Minister Mark Carney boards a government plane to head home from Riga, Latvia, on Wednesday. This week’s visit to Europe was his fourth in less than six months.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Visit Ukraine to show solidarity. Commit to keeping troops in Latvia. Reach out for investment and trade in big or growing economies.
Those are things Canadian prime ministers do on trips to Europe. What was different when Mark Carney did them over the past five days was the timing.
Mr. Carney was bringing Canada to Europe at a time when, in some ways, the United States, under President Donald Trump, is leaving – building tariff barriers to trade and casting doubt on the future of U.S. backing for European security.
European countries, like Canada, are ramping up military spending and looking for new trade partners.
That’s why Mr. Carney’s high-profile trip to Ukraine, amid Mr. Trump’s stalled peace efforts, hit a different note than even his predecessor Justin Trudeau’s travels there. It’s why Mr. Carney’s tour of a ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems shipyard, after he announced the German company as a finalist in the bidding to supply submarines to Canada, sent a message.
The Prime Minister was in Europe looking for trade and investment, talking about critical minerals and energy while in Germany, the continent’s largest economy. He’s been touting the idea that Canada and Europe can join forces in defence-industry trade. And that shipyard tour was a symbol that there could be something in it for Germany.
Carney wraps European tour with visit to Canadian Forces in Latvia
There was a stop in Poland, the fast-growing economic success of Eastern Europe, to sign a defence and energy partnership with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and to announce that Canada will be the showcase country at a defence-industry expo in Poland next year.
Those are efforts to make room for Canada as Europe reorganizes its own trade relationships, and to pry open space for Canadian industry as European nations embark on a military buildup. Poland’s defence budget, for example, went up by 31 per cent this year.
There is still bound to be a long list of challenges that Canada will have to get past to win European defence markets. It won’t be easy to attract European investment during global trade uncertainty. But this is the time to try to find a way in.
Beyond the trade promotion, Mr. Carney made this tour a reiteration of the pro-Europe message that has been an unwavering part of his politics.
His first foreign trip as Prime Minister, before he triggered a snap election in March, was to Britain and France. This week’s visit to Europe was his fourth in less than six months.
If there had been any doubt about whether Mr. Trump’s pressure might lead Mr. Carney to turn Canada’s security and foreign policy continentalist – centred on North American defence and relations with the U.S. – it’s emphatically gone now.
Ottawa to back port expansions as part of infrastructure push
Mr. Carney entrenched Canada’s attachment to its European partners and the NATO alliance. He spoke about the importance of building Canada’s hard power to defend it “in a world where we must once again contend with hard power, contested borders and authoritarian aggression.”
European allies see support for Ukraine as important to their own security and Mr. Carney’s trip there, as the guest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the country’s independence day, was noticed: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said it came “at a very crucial, historic moment.”
Like many European leaders, Mr. Carney took pains to laud Mr. Trump for suggesting the U.S. could provide security guarantees in a peace agreement with Russia.
But while European leaders worry that Mr. Trump is too willing to make concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr. Carney’s rhetoric about the Russian leader was hawkish.
When he visited Latvia to visit Canadian troops and announce the extension of the Operation Reassurance mission that began after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, he described Mr. Putin as a leader who wants empire and cannot be trusted.
“We must deter and fortify,” Mr. Carney said.
Of course, the deterrence and reassurance that Europeans want right now from a trans-Atlantic ally is the now-less-certain backing of Mr. Trump’s U.S.
But that’s what makes Mr. Carney’s move toward Europe, the trade promotion and his renewed support for the NATO alliance different from the many European trips Canadian prime ministers have taken. It came at a time of change.