Faintly, but not slowly, the outlines of a new world order are coming into view — a world order of large power blocs and with far fewer rules than the one that is now slipping away.
It remains unclear where Canada will fit into that new world. But there are hints of what could be the path forward for this country as it grapples with the painful realization that its strongest and closest ally has turned on it, every new day bringing shocking evidence of Washington’s embrace of the Kremlin.
European officials have entered into talks with Canada that aim to incorporate this country into a new defence production partnership, potentially allowing Canadian firms to bid for contracts as Europe prepares to rearm on a massive scale.
“We’ve been in talks with the European Union to make sure that we could work on defence procurement together,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told CBC’s Power & Politics host David Cochrane on Wednesday.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly joins Power & Politics as President Donald Trump utters fresh threats against Canada, confirming Canada is in talks with the European Union to ‘work together’ on defence procurement. Plus, the CBC’s Richard Madan brings us the latest from Washington.
“I think it’s yielding toward good news because ultimately we need to make sure that we can be closer to the Europeans … including defence procurement.”
Christian Leuprecht, of the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University, Canada needs to make a concrete offer to Europe as the continent quickly re-evaluates its security positioning.
“The single greatest risk to Canada has always been Canada alone in the world,” he said. “If Europe goes it alone in its decision-making and its ability to defend itself and so forth, it’s going to need Canada even less than it does now.”
In the three weeks since the Oval Office fiasco in which U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European leaders have made remarkable strides toward a new alliance focused on defending Ukraine and the rest of the continent from Russian aggression.
The question is, how much room is there for Canada in this alliance?
Europe rearms on a massive scale
European leaders are in the midst of an unprecedented overhaul of their continent’s collective defence.
“We live in the most significant and dangerous time,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, announcing a huge mobilization package for the rearmament of Europe on a scale not seen in decades.
“In this world,” said EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola, “we cannot afford to depend on others to keep us safe.”
French President Emmanuel Macron addressed his nation on prime-time television: “I want to believe that the United States will remain by our side. But we need to be ready.”
Tom Enders, former Airbus chief and head of the German Council on Foreign Relations, went further: “We can’t close our eyes to the fact that the United States is now an adversary.”
Despite leaving the EU five years ago, Britain has made it clear it wants to join the emerging alliance. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a “coalition of the willing” — open to non-Europeans — to continue defending Ukraine after Washington’s abandonment.
“Canada is the only non-European country that’s been invited to these meetings because it’s a NATO ally, and so far it has participated,” said Jamie Shea, who was NATO’s deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges during the first Trump term.
It’s clear the Europeans welcome any help they can get when it comes to Ukraine. But it’s not clear they are ready to welcome Canada into a more formal alliance if NATO continues to disintegrate under U.S. pressure.
2 harsh realities
In a world where the U.S. is moving closer to Russia and becoming increasingly hostile to Western democracies, Canada faces two harsh realities, both of which limit its appeal as an ally to other nations in any post-NATO arrangement.
The first is that Canada is seeking new alliances because it feels threatened by U.S. talk of annexation, but the allies it’s courting — with the exception of Denmark — feel threatened by Moscow, not Washington. Formal alliances with mutual defence obligations are usually most appealing to countries that face the same threats from the same quarters.
The second is that few countries will bind themselves with commitments to defend an ally that can’t return the favour. And Canada doesn’t have the capability to project significant military power to other parts of the world such as Europe.
“It’s been crickets from our allies in terms of standing up for Canada,” Leuprecht told CBC News, although there have been some small symbolic gestures.
Last week in the Oval Office, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte remained mute and even smiled as Trump made some of his most threatening annexation comments yet about both Canada and Greenland.
Canada has what Europe needs
While Canada can’t currently offer NATO much more than a brigade-strength force, it has other things that Europe badly needs, and that could be the basis of a new security arrangement.
Despite efforts to wean itself off, Europe remains heavily dependent on Russian gas. And half its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports come from the increasingly unfriendly United States.
“Europe is very vulnerable to energy extortion by the Trump administration,” said Leuprecht. “Trump will do to Europe exactly what Putin did to Europe. How do you try to mitigate that risk? You procure your liquid natural gas from Canada.”
The German government has shown strong interest in both Canadian gas and green hydrogen. In 2022, former Chancellor Olaf Scholz travelled to Newfoundland to sign a deal for hydrogen from a large wind project on the Port-au-Port Peninsula.
Lately, Canadian leaders have been making this very pitch.
“We know that we have everything a country would dream of to have in the world,” Joly said on CNN International. “We have all the energy necessary. We have all the fertilizers and potash necessary. We have all the land. And also we are an agricultural superpower. We have all the uranium necessary, the hydroelectricity, the oil and gas. We have all the people, the critical minerals, the talent, I could go on and on and on.”
Infrastructure is missing
Roderich Kiesewetter, a former general staff officer in the German army and a member of the Bundestag (parliament) who serves on its foreign affairs committee, says Canadian energy comes with little of the downsides associated with the U.S. and Russia.
“It is much better to finance Canada and to receive Canadian fossil energy and LNG than to pay Russia indirectly for their energy and gas. It would be to the advantage of both of us if Europe and your country co-operated in this.”
But Canada also has a problem: the lack of infrastructure to get its energy to Europe.
“There are no harbours. They lack the pipelines. But common investments, joint ventures of European investors and Canada could be a way out,” he said.
Kiesewetter told CBC News the partnership should be military as well as economic.
“Why shouldn’t Canada become a third party to contribute to European security, and the other way around with the European Union contributing to Canada’s security?” he said.
“In the ’80s and ’90s, German troops were in Shilo [Manitoba] and had brigade-level exercises on your territory. Why shouldn’t we reinvigorate that?”
A refuge from Russian missiles
There’s something else that Canada can offer Europe, says Leuprecht.
“Canada provides defence in depth. It’s much harder to hit this country with missiles,” he said.
Not only does Canada’s vast terrain offer unique possibilities to train European forces, including low-level flight training that is all but impossible over Europe, it could also play an important part in Europe’s rearmament.
“You’ve got to manufacture things, munitions, tanks and the like,” said Leuprecht. “Where are you going to manufacture it?”
With the Western Alliance eroding under U.S. President Donald Trump, could Canada’s defence support shift to Europe? As CBC’s Evan Dyer explains, the country’s understrength military doesn’t offer much in the way of troops presence, but it does have other things Europe needs.
Canada helped keep the British fed and armed during the darkest days of the war, when all of continental Europe was under Nazi occupation.
“We’ve seen in Ukraine just how much of the industry can be completely obliterated by these constant missile attacks,” said Shea. “Europe is going to invest in air defence and ballistic missile defence, but you’re never going to have a complete coverage.”
He said Canada can offer European military assets a relative safe haven, as well as a supply line of minerals essential for modern weapons technology.
“In every crisis there is an opportunity. And certainly this is an opportunity for Europe and Canada to draw even closer together,” he said.
Spend, spend, spend
“So the message [from Canada] is that we will do two things for our allies: defence in depth and energy security,” said Leuprecht. “But in return, you’ve got to have our back now.”
Governments in Europe, he says, are pitching the massive rearmament now underway as an economic opportunity for their own young people.
“The military proposition that Starmer has on the table for just the U.K.’s contribution to a Ukraine peacekeeping force would cost the equivalent of one per cent of GDP,” he said.
“He’s going around selling this, you can see there’s videos online saying this defence investment is going to create good jobs for Brits. We’re going to create engineering jobs. We’re going to innovate. This is good for Britain. You know, I see no Canadian politician out here selling that.
“If I was a politician, I would be saying every factory in Canada that’s going out of business, we’re going to figure out how we can make it part of the defence industrial complex and how we can provide for our European partners.”
