This weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that Prime Minister Mark Carney is pushing for associate membership with the European Union in an effort to diversify Canada away from the United States. Though, on Sunday evening Carney downplayed the story, and said he is seeking a “unique alliance” with the EU. It’s a convenient dodge in any case as both terms are undefined in any legal sense and Canadians deserve to know what the Prime Minister is actually up to.
More than 1,000 demonstrators have gathered in downtown Toronto on Monday to protest against an investment summit organized by Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The Canada Investment Summit is taking place on Monday and Tuesday in Toronto and is hosted by Carney, who has invited over 100 of the world’s largest investors from around the world in the hopes of securing $1 trillion in investments in some 167 projects across the country over the next five years.
Hundreds of anti capitalist protesters have gathered at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto to protest the Canada Investment Summit organized by Prime Minister Mark Carney happening now. pic.twitter.com/oeg06NOn76
— Harrison Faulkner (@Harry__Faulkner) September 14, 2026
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada is “taking control” of its future as his inaugural Investment Summit kicks off in Toronto this week amid renewed trade tensions with the U.S.
Addressing a room of business and government leaders Sunday night during the summit’s welcome reception, the prime minister also hinted at deals that could be announced in the coming days.
“Tomorrow, something remarkable will happen,” Carney said. “The world is looking at Canada differently. And I suggest we should look at ourselves differently too,” he added.
It will be a “comprehensive partnership” covering trade, security and diplomacy.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, is expected to announce a new deal with Canada in her state of the union address next week.
Before long, she will be shaking hands with Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, and the Ode to Joy may be ringing out across Ottawa.
But this may not be the miracle agreement it’s cracked up to be.
Protests are planned for the prime minister’s high-stakes summit aimed at attracting new investment to Canada, with organizers saying Mark Carney is keeping company with business leaders they say are exacerbating global crises.
Hundreds of executives and global asset managers are set to arrive in Toronto for Canada’s first-ever investment summit to get a look at major projects in various stages of development.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada plans to begin discussions for a “unique alliance” with the European Union — but not membership — as he gears up to address the European Parliament this week.
“We’re not looking to become a member of the European Union,” Carney said Sunday evening on the red carpet of the Toronto International Film Festival. He attended the festival shortly after giving a speech to kick off the two-day Canada Investment Summit, which begins Monday.
Carney’s investment “summit” reminds me of this Bugs Cartoon “One For You”
View this post on Instagram
The United States is imposing tariffs on much of the world, disrupting supply chains and inviting retaliation from its trading partners. Yet American food inflation remains lower than Canada’s.
For Canadians repeatedly told that external forces are primarily responsible for their rising grocery bills, this is an uncomfortable comparison.
Back in April, I wrote Killing the Golden Goose. I argued that Canada appeared to be making itself progressively less competitive while people with large pools of mobile capital were well positioned to profit from the resulting decline. I used “shorting” as an analogy: weaken something of value, then benefit from the lower value that follows.
Four months later, some new information has appeared.
Our latest national tracking survey was conducted from September 4 to 9, in a political environment that continues to be shaped overwhelmingly by Canada’s confrontation with the United States.
Since our last survey, the Liberals swept three federal byelections on August 31, holding Beaches–East York and North Vancouver–Capilano and winning Chicoutimi–Le Fjord from the Bloc Québécois.
Leger has a slightly larger lead than Abacus
Latest Leger Poll modelled out
🔴LIB: 240 seats (+71)
🔵CON: 76 seats (-68)
⚜️BQ: 23 seats (+1)
🟠NDP: 3 seats (-4)
🟢GRN: 1 seats (nc)🔴Liberal Majority Government
(+/- change from 2025 election) https://t.co/CHrfo6PEel pic.twitter.com/JYorAqtHFB
— Charestiste🇨🇦🍁 (@RealAlbanianPat) September 13, 2026
h/t Mauser
Don’t blink this fall. It’s going to be a critical — and unpredictable — few months for our country. That’s why I’m watching three categories of events: cheers, jeers, and peers.
First up is a phenomenon called cheering theory, where people root for a proposition or person or institution. This is Canada’s secret weapon in the trade war against the United States, because Canadians are cheering for their federal government so loudly that it’s a self-reinforcing roar. People want Prime Minister Mark Carney to succeed — even plenty of people who didn’t vote Liberal in the last election. Seven in 10 Canadians support the decision to suspend trade talks with the U.S. rather than accept a bad deal, according to Abacus Data. When was the last time any public policy initiative had that level of backing? The Liberals are winning byelection after byelection. Look at the public comments on Carney’s latest Forward Guidance video and you’ll see more positivity than you knew existed on the internet. One Australian commenter said, “I don’t even know what elbows up means, but ELBOWS UP!” Whatever the game, people want Carney to win.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to bring the world’s most powerful investors to Toronto next week was always a gambit to ease the economic pressure from the Trump administration’s trade crusade by pitching Canada as an alternative, more reliable place to put money to work.
What event planners could not have predicted is the way a feud over tariffs would boil over into a full-blown trade war just days before those money managers are set to touch down, and the intense spotlight it is shining on Canada – for better and for worse.
It is Mr. Carney’s reputation and relationships, backed by a co-ordinated push from some of Canada’s most influential chief executives, that have convinced the masters of the world’s deepest pools of capital to gather for two days at the Canada Investment Summit, at a scale never seen before on Canadian soil.
An avalanche of MOU’s signifying nothing.
Prime Minister Mark Carney described Canada as the “most European of non-European countries” at a joint summit in Brussels last summer. This eye-raising remark led some political pundits and columnists (including me ) to speculate that his personal mission wasn’t to improve relations with the U.S., but to jump into the “waiting arms” of the European Union.
If that was his ultimate goal, it seemed rather unrealistic from the very beginning.
Conservative MP Jamil Jivani posted a video on social media bemoaning a lack of “an alternative to the Liberals” on Thursday, the same day that his party’s leader, Pierre Poilievre, launched a U.S. tour to argue for tariff-free trade.
“You have people who should be offering an alternative to the Liberals, instead going out there to appease people in positions of power,” Jivani said in a video posted on X.
The MP went on to say it’s his job and the job of the Conservative Party to offer an alternative in Ottawa.
Shortly after Canada and America became embroiled in the worst bilateral trade war in their modern history, the secure phones of Europe’s top leaders lit up with a trans-Atlantic call. Mark Carney was pushing to take Canada’s relationship with the EU to the next level—a bold gambit to rewire the economic cabling of the Western alliance.
For months, the Canadian prime minister had held private conversations with almost every major European leader—from France to Italy, Germany and Scandinavia and even some of the continent’s lesser-known royals—on how to more deeply plug Canada and its 41 million people into Europe’s 27-nation club.
Now, Carney was accelerating Canada’s pivot to Europe, matchmaking a shotgun marriage to offset the pain of its divorce with America. In effect, a threat to make Canada the 51st state is pushing America’s northern neighbor so close to Europe that leaders have begun to half-in-jest dub it the EU’s newest member.
It’s bad enough Prime Minister Mark Carney handed Hamas a diplomatic victory when Canada became the first G7 nation to recognize a Palestinian state on Sept. 21, 2025.
Hamas promptly thanked Canada and other countries for doing so, calling it “the fruits of ” its Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.
