Prime Minister Mark Carney hosting European Union leaders at the Canada–EU summit in Montreal this week is just the latest step in a rapid diplomatic pivot toward Brussels that has already produced a security and defence partnership, negotiations on an “alliance for the future,” even if the exact arrangement is being debated in European capitals.  

The timing is no coincidence. With the Trump administration weaponizing tariffs and industrial subsidies amid the high stakes CUSMA joint review, Ottawa has staked Canada’s economic security on doubling non-U.S. exports over the next decade. The European Union – the world’s second-largest single market and one of Canada’s closest democratic partners – could sit at the centre of that strategy.

Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last month, Carney argued that Canada and Europe must learn to “ally by function” – allowing Canada to gain increased access to European industrial, defence and technology programs.

Building on the landmark agreement in February making Canada the only non-European country inside the €150-billion SAFE defence procurement fund, draft plans for the Montreal summit would allow Canadian firms to:

bid on EU sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud tenders;

bring in the European Investment Bank to co-finance critical mineral projects;

co-ordinate a proposed joint purchase of 50 De Havilland water bombers;

advance negotiations for a Canada–EU digital trade agreement.

Why is such a hands-on push necessary when CETA, our free trade agreement with the EU, eliminated nearly 99 per cent of bilateral tariffs after it was enacted in 2017?

Nine years of free trade show that zero tariffs were just the starting line. With Europe at least, it seems free trade agreements are just one part of a broader strategy that must include strategic procurement partnerships and address other non-tariff barriers.

Figure 1 tracks Canadian exports before and after CETA’s provisional entry into force in September 2017, illustrating both real transatlantic progress and the ceiling that tariff cuts alone seemingly hit.

In merchandise trade, goods exports to the EU-27 (which excludes the........

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