Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Australia, as Canada seeks to build on already strong intelligence ties by broadening collaboration in trade and defence.
The prime minister arrived in Sydney midday Tuesday local time, which was Monday evening in Canada. He is expected to meet with business leaders in Sydney.
“This is a very important relationship for Canada to continue to build on. It is one that’s predicated on years of cooperation,” Defence Minister David McGuinty, who is in Sydney with Carney, said Tuesday.
He told reporters Canada is building on the relationship with Australia on two tracks — a deeper economic connection and defence and security.
McGuinty said there is a “new openness here in Australia to work with Canada.”
“I would say that the prime minister’s outreach and indicating that there is another way for middle powers to come together and collaborate on the economy, on defense, on security, is a message that resonates very strongly.”
While McGuinty held a media availability shortly after arriving in Sydney, Carney has not spoken with reporters in days. His office cancelled a Monday press conference in India, following his meeting there with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His office declined reporters’ requests to make him available to answer questions Tuesday.
On Thursday he will head to Canberra to address the Australian Parliament. Carney will then leave for Tokyo.
Carney will meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been in power since 2022. Both countries are Commonwealth nations and partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, along with the U.S., U.K. and New Zealand.
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“Australia obviously is a natural partner for Canada in the Indo-Pacific,” Asia Pacific Foundation vice-president Vina Nadjibulla said in an interview last month.
Both countries are commodity exporters, and Nadjibulla noted that Beijing has swapped sourcing imports from one country or the other at times of friction, such as buying Australian canola products when it restricted Canadian imports during a diplomatic row.
Among Indo-Pacific nations, Australia has been “by far the leading source” of foreign direct investment in both directions for Canada, Nadjibulla said, particularly for Canadian pension funds.
Canberra has also signed onto a handful of initiatives Canada has launched on shoring up supply chains for critical minerals to lessen the reliance western countries have on China. Nadjibulla said Canada could learn from an Australian initiative to stockpile certain strategically important critical minerals.
At the G20 summit in South Africa last November, Carney launched a partnership on emerging technologies with India and Australia, though none of the three countries have provided much detail on what that work will entail.
Ottawa and Canberra signed an agreement last year for Canada to buy an over-the-horizon radar system from Australia, for use in the Arctic, and Nadjibulla said both could build on this through defence-industrial projects touching on cybersecurity or quantum technology.
Australia was among the nations Canada pointed out last month in a strategy on how Ottawa aims to spend billions to shore up its defence.
The prime minister’s visit comes as he leads a push to get the European Union to join some form of partnership with a massive Pacific Rim trade bloc that includes Australia and is called the CPTPP. Canada is a member of that bloc and has a trade agreement with the EU.
The idea is to sidestep that dysfunction Beijing and Washington have created at the World Trade Organization, and have most other large economies trading with predictable rules, Nadjibulla said.
“In the absence of an overall multilateral framework, the best next option is this kind of smaller coalition, of countries that are still interested in rules-based trade, and interested in upholding these values,” she said.
While Australia has been grappling with the erratic policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, Nadjibulla said it’s important to remember that Canada is far more integrated into the American economy by virtue of proximity.
“They’re less exposed to the volatility and unpredictability of Trump,” she said. “Public opinion is not as focused on President Trump in Australia. They’re much more focused on closer, regional issues vis-a-vis China and the threats of China in the Indo-Pacific.”
Nadjibulla said Canberra would thus be unlikely to take a strong stand against Washington. But she said Australia could be a guide for Canada as it seeks to boost economic and security ties with countries in Southeast Asia, where Ottawa has various trade deals signed and under negotiation.
“Australia has a lot more inroads in its relationships, and Canada wants to do more. We can pull resources essentially, and bring more scale and more depth when we show up in that region, if we partner with Australia,” she said.
— With files from Dylan Robertson in Ottawa.
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