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Mark Carney told investors at Canada's inaugural Investment Summit that Ottawa will pursue a "unique security and economic alliance" with the EU while pitching Canada as a "safe harbour" from fracturing US trade ties.

What is a key fact in this story? (1)

**Mark Carney** said at the inaugural Canada Investment Summit in Toronto that Ottawa will pursue a "unique security and economic alliance" with the EU, telling investors tariffs have been "weaponised" and framing Canada as a "safe harbour" for foreign capital.

What is a key fact in this story? (2)

**Carney** will address MEPs in Strasbourg on Thursday as guest of honour at the European parliament's plenary, a week after Canada became the first non-European country to join the EU's €150bn defence loans scheme.

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Carney courts EU 'alliance' amid Canada-US trade rift — SkimNews

By The Guardian World · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-09-15

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Mark Carney said at the inaugural Canada Investment Summit in Toronto that Ottawa will pursue a "unique security and economic alliance" with the EU, telling investors tariffs have been "weaponised" and framing Canada as a "safe harbour" for foreign capital.
Carney will address MEPs in Strasbourg on Thursday as guest of honour at the European parliament's plenary, a week after Canada became the first non-European country to join the EU's €150bn defence loans scheme.
Carney's office announced nearly C$500bn in new domestic investment ahead of the summit, alongside a corporate tax "mega-deduction" letting firms immediately deduct 100% of new investment costs and a plan to open four major airports to foreign capital.
EU-Canada trade hit €130bn in 2025 — an 80% increase since Ceta was signed in 2016 — yet trade with the US is worth nearly $880bn, and ten EU member states including France, Italy and Poland still have not ratified the nine-year-old pact.
Carney conceded the US will remain Canada's largest trading partner given geography, stating "we will always be neighbours," while European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is set to outline new EU-Canada cooperation areas in her Wednesday state of the union address.
Trump has recently both threatened Canada's economy and "mused about a North America under the umbrella of an expanded US," according to the summit host, who cast Canada as "a protagonist" rather than "a bystander" in the geopolitical shift.
Protesters including an Aboriginal-led investment coalition gathered outside the venue, complaining they couldn't get meetings with ministers; one delegate flew from British Columbia to demand ministers "think of Canadians first."

Why it matters: For Canadian policymakers, the math is stark: $880bn in US trade still dwarfs €130bn with Europe, so even a deepened EU alliance functions as a hedge rather than a replacement unless Washington further ruptures the relationship. Brussels is offering Carney closer integration — short of membership — precisely as Trump muses about an expanded North American umbrella, leaving the roughly 80% Ceta trade growth since 2016 as Carney's most concrete lever if US tariffs escalate.