What Carney said about his vision for ‘associate membership’ in EU | Read the full speech

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Canadian membership of Erasmus+ can give your students, and ours, more opportunity to learn at some of the world’s top universities, to broaden their horizons, and to build lasting ties that will sustain our alliance for the future.

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Canadian membership of the next generation of Horizon would allow us to pool resources, cooperate on frontier technologies, and leverage our world-class research institutes and universities.

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Yesterday, President von der Leyen announced a “new European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials” to obtain and stockpile the material needed for electric cars, chips and batteries, clean technology, and defence. Canada has deposits of over 34 critical minerals, and we are among the top producers of the 10 most essential for the world’s energy transition. Our alliance can help fill Europe’s need for reliable supply, Canada’s need for advanced processing capabilities, and our common objective to build complete value chains.

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Canada can contribute LNG and hydrogen at large scale to support Europe’s energy security including by developing and leveraging new port infrastructure in the High North and on our East Coast. We, in turn, can benefit from your leadership in many clean energy technologies.

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We can pool new sovereign compute capacity and build more secure broadband connections between Europe and Asia via our common geography.

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Canada and Europe can join forces to develop AI safety protocols, coordinate common standards, and strengthen transparency, all while developing applications so our governments and companies can serve our citizens better.

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Canada and Europe should also consider exploring an integrated market for financial services to broaden choice and reduce costs for our citizens, improve access to capital for our companies while maintaining our world-leading financial resilience.

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The opportunities that can be created by an alliance for the future are, most fundamentally, the product of our common values, our compatible systems, and our complementary strengths.

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Deepening and widening our relationship will strengthen our sovereignty, improve affordability, opportunity, and security for our citizens, while safeguarding our ability to live our lives as we choose.

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I want to be precise about what I am not proposing. I am not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great-power rival – only with better manners.

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We do not seek power to dominate others. On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience so that no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.

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Those motivations, combined with our latent hard power, mean we can help to create the next just, stable, and prosperous world order.

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A Canada-EU alliance would create a beacon for other democracies.

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An alliance not defined by what we oppose, but about what we are for: freedom, solidarity, prosperity, sustainability. An alliance that builds resilience for what it allows us to do for our citizens, and our citizens to do for themselves.

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An alliance strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices. An alliance open enough that others can join. An alliance principled enough that our strength reinforces international law rather than replaces it.

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To conclude, in my country, it is often said that Canada became a nation during the battle of Vimy Ridge. Certainly, the thousands of Canadians who did not return from that battle sacrificed their lives for something much bigger than themselves.

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One who did come home stopped first to pick up some acorns.

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Today, the same Vimy oaks grow in Canada and in France, living proof that what we cultivate together can survive the darkest winter to thrive again.

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So, let us now deepen these roots, widen this canopy, and grow a transatlantic forest under which our citizens can flourish as free people on free ground.

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Every single day.

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Thank you.

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