Carney wraps up busy week abroad

Prime Minister Mark Carney is wrapping up a busy week abroad. The prime minister visited several countries over the past week and met with world leaders.

First off, Carney visited India, where he was greeted by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, at Hyderabad House.

Both leaders delivered a joint statement, and Canada secured a new partnership with India focused on energy, talent, and technology.

Canada and India will conclude a new Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement this year, following a meeting of chief negotiators in New Delhi and the finalization and signing of the Terms of Reference. The agreement will advance Canada’s goal to more than double two-way trade to $70 billion by 2030.

From there, the prime minister visited Australia, where he met with the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. Later, Carney delivered an address to both Houses of Australia’s Parliament and invited dignitaries.

Carney and Albanese agreed to advance industrial collaboration to enable greater integration of defence sectors and streamline procurement and innovation. To this end, Canada and Australia are identifying mutually beneficial options to strengthen defence trade, industrial collaboration, and cooperation on advanced technologies. This could include reduced export controls, reciprocal intellectual property sharing, and the co-production of military capabilities.

Canada and Australia will also intensify coordination to tackle criminal networks, smuggling, foreign intelligence manipulation, and cybercrimes, undertake joint efforts to safeguard the Arctic, and expand cooperation on emergency management and disaster risk reduction.

Both Canada and Australia are rapidly scaling up sovereign AI, compute capabilities, and other emerging technologies. Carney and Albanese welcomed a Memorandum of Understanding on AI Safety.

Finally, Carney met with Sanae Takaichi, the Prime Minister of Japan. The leaders discussed three bilateral Memorandums of Cooperation through which to strengthen cooperation on crisis response, joint patrol coordination and enforcement against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in the North Pacific, and information sharing, patrol coordination, and joint exercises between the Canadian Coast Guard and the Japan Coast Guard.

They discussed the growing economic and security partnerships between Canada and Japan, and agreed to strengthen coordination on security and technology, including cyber threats.