Carney to deepen Canada's defence and economic ties at Munich Security Conference

Canada is positioning its prime ministerial engagement in Munich as a coordinated push to translate recent policy commitments into concrete international support and private capital. The trip, scheduled for February 11–15, 2026, will feature meetings intended to synchronize Canada’s military modernization with allied defence planning, shore up energy and supply-chain resilience, and stimulate inward investment into strategically sensitive sectors such as critical minerals and advanced technologies. Officials will use the platform to report progress toward the multilateral Defence Investment Pledge that anchors a long-term increase in defence-related expenditure as a share of GDP and to solidify Canada’s participation in European defence mechanisms. A central diplomatic aim is to secure cooperative arrangements that enhance Canada’s ability to project and sustain forces around the Arctic and along NATO’s northern and western approaches. Economic diplomacy is being emphasized alongside security outreach: Ottawa plans to court global capital and industry leaders to accelerate domestic value chains for minerals, energy, and AI-related hardware and software. The prime minister will underline Canada’s intent to combine sovereign capability development with interoperable procurement and industrial partnerships that reduce single-point dependencies. Engagements are also meant to reiterate sustained political support for Ukraine and to align allied posture on energy security given ongoing geopolitical volatility. The Munich forum’s broad participation—this edition expects more than fifty national leaders—creates leverage for parallel bilateral and multilateral negotiations. For Canadian stakeholders, the trip is both a signaling exercise and a practical step to convert pledges into procurement frameworks, investment commitments, and interoperability agreements. The visit therefore carries implications for defence-industrial strategy, capital flows into strategic sectors, and alliance burden-sharing over the next decade. Success will be measured not by rhetoric but by follow-on memoranda, investment announcements, and concrete cooperation on supply chains and training. Conversely, vague or nonbinding outcomes could slow Canada’s planned capability ramp-up and reduce investor confidence in nascent domestic supply chains. In short, the Munich visit is positioned as a hinge point where domestic defence scaling, export-oriented industrial policy, and alliance diplomacy intersect, with outcomes that will influence Canada’s strategic posture and economic trajectory.