Carney wraps up Asia trip looking ahead to first federal budget next week

The prime minister began the trip at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia last week with a plan to pitch Canada as a reliable trading partner and to encourage investment into nation-building projects at home.

He stopped in Singapore to speak with major investment firms about drumming up funding for Canada’s trade infrastructure, before meeting with various Asian leaders at the APEC summit.

Carney said Canada is working to conclude free trade deals with Thailand and the Philippines, along with the wider ASEAN bloc, within a year. He also signed a defence and security partnership with South Korea, where he says Canada will send a trade mission next year.

“Opportunity comes from fundamentally changing how countries trade, how they partner, how they build, and the technologies that go with that,” Carney told reporters before boarding a flight home to Ottawa.

“Asia is a region, like Canada, that’s at the forefront — at the coal face, if you will — of the global transformation that is gathering pace.”

Carney sought to advance sectors such as aerospace, mining and artificial intelligence in the region, but his trip was at times dominated by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The prime minister repeatedly noted the need to diversify away from the United States, and frequently faced questions regarding Trump’s anger over an Ontario advertisement that noted former president Ronald Reagan’s opposition to tariffs.

“After all the noise of this week, Canada still has the best trade deal of any country with the U.S.,” Carney said.

Jonathan Berkshire Miller, a principal with the Pendulum Group lobbying firm, told the Defence Deconstructed podcast in a Friday episode that he was troubled by the way Carney explained his trip, saying that it implied Canada was only now “ready to engage” with the region because of the difficulties with Trump.

“The framing of this, hinged on our relationship with the United States, is inherently problematic,” he told the podcast, published by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

He noted that Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy — one that the government now wants to update after three years — had focused on positioning Ottawa as a strong partner and instead of an intermittent peer who comes and goes in the region. Miller said Carney’s remarks seemed to undercut that effort by suggesting Ottawa only turns to Asia when Canada is in trouble.

“We have to be careful on that framing because it seems very opportunistic — potentially even episodic, which we’ve been accused of before in the region.”

As he returns to Canada, the prime minister will face a different test in Parliament: the introduction of his government’s first budget on Tuesday.

Carney said the spending plan will provide details on how it intends to transform the economy, and that it comes at “an important moment in the global economy.”

Andreas Schotter, a professor of international business at Western University’s Ivey Business School in London, Ont., said Canada will need to invest in more supports for businesses to diversify their markets.

He noted that Canada is behind its peers in having enough trade commissioners, who work out of embassies to identify local industry opportunities and contacts.

“We really have to look and help businesses that want to seek other markets, how to do it, where to do it, what is the right step,” he said in an interview.

It’s unclear what Tuesday’s budget will hold for Canada’s global engagement.

The minority Liberal government will need the support of some opposition members of Parliament, or have members abstain from the vote, in order to pass the budget in the House of Commons.

Opposition parties have been laying out their lists of demands for the government in advance of budget day.

On Saturday, Carney wouldn’t say if he’s confident the budget will pass.

“I am 100 per cent confident that this budget is the right budget for this country at this moment,” he said.

“This is not a game.”

If the budget does not pass on a confidence vote, the government would be toppled and Canadians could be headed to another election. Carney was asked if he’s prepared to fight an election over the spending plan.

“I’m always prepared to stand up for the right thing,” he said.

by The Canadian Press

Carney wraps up Asia trip looking ahead to first federal budget next week

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