Canada’s pivot to Europe is a sound strategic move

Shared values and a shared desire to reduce dependence on the United States make a deeper Canada-Europe relationship a logical step.

Canada’s pivot to Europe is well underway.

Last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand established a ‘foreign and security policy strategic partnership‘ with Finland. Anand also joined the Nordic Five in reaffirming support for Ukraine.

Industry Minister Melanie Joly visited Sweden and met with Saab, the makers of the Gripen-E jet, which has been pitched to Canada as an alternative to the F-35.

This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney travelled to Europe, starting with a surprise visit to Ukraine, before heading to Poland. Later in the week, he will visit Germany and Latvia.

In Ukraine, the Carney and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy committed to joint defence production:

“Canada and Ukraine committed to joint defense projects, including equipping Ukraine’s Armed Forces. They welcomed the signing of a Letter of Intent between the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and Canada’s Department of National Defence to co-produce defense materials in both countries.”

In Poland, the two countries agreed to a significant deepening of economic and military cooperation. Below, you can find some of the most relevant parts of today’s Canada-Poland joint statement:

“Encourage mutually beneficial strategic partnerships between our defence industries, including in support of Ukraine’s defence and recovery. This will be facilitated by respective commitments to increase defence spending and by leveraging the Canada-EU Security & Defence Partnership and Canadian collaboration through the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) mechanism. Both governments will promote significant industrial participation at major industrial trade events, such as CANSEC 2026 (May 2026, Ottawa, Canada) and the 34th International Defence Industry Exhibition (MSPO) (September 2026, Kielce, Poland) where Canada will be lead Nation. They will explore options to conduct joint procurements, including under SAFE-enabled EU common procurement, and facilitate business-to-business connections in support of expanding defence industrial integration. Both countries will also explore options for co-development and co-sustainment, including through EU and NATO mechanisms.

Cooperation will cover advanced technological domains in areas such as radars, communications, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance technologies, and artificial intelligence. Both sides will support technology transfer and stronger supply chains by facilitating the participation of Polish and Canadian companies in production and delivery programmes, with due regard for intellectual property protection and product certification. In parallel, experience will be exchanged in the modernization of vehicles, aviation and naval forces. Enhancing resilience of supply chains will remain a priority, with efforts directed towards diversification of sources, building strategic reserves and securing critical infrastructure against cyber threats. Both governments will also explore the development of dual-use technologies, including cooperation with Ukraine on drone platforms with both logistics and defence applications.”

“Reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine’s self-defence against Russia’s unprovoked aggression, including training the Security Forces of Ukraine through NATO’s Security Assistance and Training to Ukraine (NSATU) initiative. Both countries will collaborate on the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) Armour Capability Coalition and facilitate donations via the Logistic Enabling Node in Poland. Poland welcomes Canada’s recently announced $20 million contribution to the Leopard 2A4 Repair Facility in Gliwice, Poland. Canada and Poland will also work together to maintain and intensify economic pressure on Russia and enhance bilateral cooperation and exchange of information on sanctions. They will also continue to support Ukraine civilian society, including by exploring participation to the European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform Ukraine.”

“Explore new cooperation opportunities to enhance awareness of threats and risks to the human domain and counter the hybrid threats that undermine the national security of Canada and Poland and that of their NATO Allies, including espionage, targeting of critical infrastructure, foreign interference, information manipulation, malicious cyber activity, and targeting of intellectual property critical to economic prosperity.”

“Increase dialogue on common migration policy themes, and strengthen cooperation to combat cross-border, transnational, and organized crime involving the illicit movement of goods and individuals. Key efforts will include enhanced information exchange, sharing of expertise, increased engagement through multilateral fora, and exploration of new mechanisms for collaboration. Areas of focus will include illicit and instrumentalized migration, such as human smuggling and trafficking, as well as the smuggling of narcotics, precursor chemicals, cultural property, and strategic goods.”

We can expect similar agreements in Germany and Latvia, given that Germany is determined to expand its military and deepen partnerships to reduce reliance on the U.S., and given that Canada has played a key role in defending Latvia as part of NATO, with a significant deployment of troops there as part of Operation Reassurance.

In particular, the potential of military-industrial partnerships with Germany is significant, as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made rebuilding the German military his “top priority“:

“Building up our military is our top priority,” said Merz. “From now on, the federal government will provide the military with as much money as it needs to ensure it becomes Europe’s strongest armed force. We are Europe’s most populous country and Europe’s biggest economy, and nothing less should be expected from us. Our partners not only expect this — they demand it.”

Like Canada, Germany wants to reduce its dependence on the United States. While they are purchasing F-35s (as Canada is likely to do) to build their air force in the short term, they are seeking non-US partners for long-term military resilience. Canada can and should be one of those partners.

There is also an important economic dimension here. Germany’s robust (but currently underutilized) defence sector produces high-quality small arms, tanks, armoured vehicles, missiles, self-propelled artillery, and drones. Yet, Germany lacks Canada’s massive natural resource base and continues to seek deals that provide it with abundant LNG. Canada can trade natural resources for weapons and, most importantly, long-term defence industrial partnerships that will help our defence sector become more efficient and experienced in building a wide range of weapon systems.

Shared values, shared goals

While each European nation is different, and while Canada is separated from Europe by the Atlantic (unless you count Saint Pierre & Miquelon, there are some broadly shared values and shared goals that make a deeper partnership wise.

To start with, both Canada and Europe have depended on the United States for military protection, and both assumed that the U.S. would remain committed to providing that protection. That commitment is now in doubt. Similarly, the U.S. long wanted Canada and Europe to depend upon U.S.-produced weapons, a dependence that eroded our strategic autonomy and now leaves many countries in a vulnerable position.

In terms of values, there is a shared opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a shared desire to defend the rules-based international order. Many European nations are in a similar category to Canada, with populations too small to be superpowers but with enough wealth and technological heft to be regional powers if not great powers. Thus, when efforts and resources are pooled, a handful of European countries alongside Canada can project significant power in both economic and military terms.

Latent power

While the United States is currently maximizing its use of power (and likely exceeding it through short-term bullying tactics and massive borrowing that will cause damage down the road), Canada and much of Europe have the opposite problem: Failing to maximize our potential power.

For example, Canada alone has a GDP equivalent to that of Russia, yet Russia is currently outproducing all of Europe militarily. Ultimately, this is nothing more than a mindset problem. Canada and many European nations bet that the era of war had passed and that large military budgets were no longer necessary. There was also a bet that we didn’t need to fully utilize our resources.

Those bets were lost, and now we must adjust. This adjustment is underway, but it must be ramped up. And this is where Canada and European nations can work together in a mutually beneficial way. With this in mind, three areas of cooperation should be prioritized:

Defending the Arctic

With the United States and Russia inexplicably talking about resource extraction cooperation in the Arctic, smaller Arctic nations like the Nordic Five (Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland), have much to lose, and thus much to gain through deeper cooperation. With the United Kingdom also showing an interest in helping defend the Arctic, Canada, the UK, and Northern European nations should pool our military resources to deter Russian aggression and make it clear that NATO allies are the better choice for the U.S. to work with.

Containing the Russian threat to NATO in Europe

A more powerful Canadian military and a European economic boom fuelled in part by abundant Canadian energy would go a long way toward deterring Russian aggression in Europe more broadly. As previously noted, Canada alone matches Russia’s economy, and a strong Canadian military buildup – particularly if it boosts our presence in the North – would make it more difficult for Russia to control the region, forcing Russia to expend more resources in the North and thus reducing its potential strength in Europe. Then, a more powerful European economy would make it more affordable for European nations to ramp up their defence industries. And given that Europe + Canada dwarf Russia in total GDP and population, this would make Russian aggression untenable in the long run. And of course, the more rapidly we can build up, the more we can help provide weapons and financial support to Ukraine, and the more robust the ‘reassurance force’ will be on the ground, in the seas, and in the air when a ceasefire/peace deal is reached.

Protecting the rules-based order

The idea that borders cannot be changed by force and that trade deals and commitments should be respected is under siege, most of all by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and to a lesser extent by US protectionism and questioning of alliances, alongside China’s hostility to freedom in Taiwan and the CCP’s highly repressive political system.

However, the ideas underpinning the rules-based order remain worth protecting. Who wants to return to an era of dictators redrawing borders and destroying smaller countries through a ‘might-makes-right’ mindset? While it’s easy to look at the rules-based order as overly utopian or naive, the fact remains that it helped contribute to a long era of relative global peace, and was itself built on a foundation of centuries of thinking about how to best avoid war and encourage human flourishing through mutually beneficial cooperation and trade. Support for the rules-based order remains high in Canada and much of Europe, and the U.S. is likely to return to a more supportive perspective toward that order in time (though that could be as soon as three years from now or a decade from now).

The challenge in defending that order has been the lack of ‘hard power’ in Europe and Canada. The U.S. was the main defender of the status quo because it was, and remains, the only Western nation with the raw military strength to punish those who threaten the order. Now that the U.S. is less willing to do that, and even willing to disrupt that order, Canada and Europe need to step up. More military cooperation, mutually beneficial trade, and deeper economic ties can transform the middle powers of Canada and Europe into a cooperative group of nations that, in aggregate, possess the strength of a great power.

A wise move that must be built upon

While Canada cannot control the United States, we can control how we react to tariffs and threats. Reducing our exposure to and thus our dependence on the U.S. requires both freeing up our economy here at home and deepening partnerships with like-minded allies. With China being unreliable and in many ways hostile, and Canada-India relations strained, Europe (and CANZUK nations) are the best immediate partners for Canada to reach out to. The government appears to recognize this, and they are laying a solid foundation on which to build. The question now is whether these initial moves will be followed by the long-term focus required to help Canada escape – even if just in part – from the gravitational pull of our neighbours to the south.

Spencer Fernando

Image – YouTube