Carney Advances Pivot From America With Investor Conference, Outreach to Europe

TORONTO — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s bid to pivot Canada away from economic dependence on America faces its biggest tests yet this week with an investor conference attracting the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds and a high-profile visit to Strasbourg to propose an “associate membership” in the European Union.The moves, which will see Mr. Carney become the first non-European leader to attend a State of the European Union address, are part of a monthslong effort by Canada’s leader to develop new markets and sources of investment in response to punishing American tariffs introduced by President Trump. The United States currently buys almost 70 percent of Canada’s exports and accounts for almost half of its direct foreign investment.Mr. Carney, a former governor of the Bank of England, has drawn on his contacts in the world of finance to attract Wall Street titans and leaders of the largest international funds to the two-day investment conference beginning Monday at Toronto, with a goal of raising $1 trillion over the next five years.Expected participants include senior managers from Norway’s $2.3-trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, and chief executives from other national funds based in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Abu Dhabi, and the Netherlands. United States-based firms attending are expected to include Berkshire Hathaway, Blackstone, BlackRock, and Barclays PLC.At a cabinet meeting in Alberta last week, Mr. Carney said he would use the summit to promote Canada’s natural resources and its role as a reliable supplier in an uncertain world, effectively drawing a contrast with the unpredictability of Mr. Trump’s on-and-off-again trade and tariff policies. “Canada is about so much more than being next to the United States, OK? We have what the world wants,” he told reporters.His government has already approved or begun work on new export-oriented infrastructure projects, including a new oil pipeline to the Pacific coast and the expansion of a deep-water port on Hudson Bay.From Toronto, Mr. Carney will fly to Strasbourg, France, where on Wednesday he will become the first non-European leader ever invited to attend the European Commission president’s State of the EU address. A day later he will deliver his own address to a plenary session of the European Parliament.Mr. Carney and his EU counterparts have been discussing closer economic integration since the prime minister’s widely noted remarks at Davos in January, when he spoke of a “rupture” in international relations and told other mid-size powers that if they “are not at the table, you are on the menu.” There have even been half-serious suggestions that Canada might become an EU member.While that possibility is unlikely, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Mr. Carney will propose a newly designed “associate membership” for Canada, which would provide favorable access to the common market for Canadian companies.The arrangement would allow for free movement in strategic supply chains such as energy, AI, defense, and critical minerals, the Journal reported. It said discussions are also underway regarding new underwater cables, jointly constructed data centers, cloud storage, and infrastructure to ship Canadian energy to the EU.Already in February, Canada became the first EU country to enter a loan facility designed to support joint defense procurement known as the Security Action for Europe initiative. Mr. Carney’s government is currently reconsidering a plan to purchase 88 Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters, suggesting that most of them could be replaced with Saab Gripen E fighters from Sweden.The Journal said Mr. Carney has also spoken to President Emmanuel Macron of France and other EU leaders about visa-free access to Europe for Canadians who wish to live and work there.Later this month, Messrs. Carney and Macron are to discuss energy and defense partnerships in a meeting at St. Pierre and Miquelon — a pair of tiny French islands located just 15 miles from the Canadian province of Newfoundland. French authorities were irked by Mr. Trump’s recent post of a map superimposing the American flag over all of North and Central America, including the French islands.

Carney Advances Pivot From America With Investor Conference, Outreach to Europe

Carney Advances Pivot From America With Investor Conference, Outreach to Europe

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