Europe and Canada are even stronger together. Mark Carney’s speech in Strasbourg

President Metsola, President von der Leyen, honourable Members of the European Parliament, distinguished colleagues,

Thank you for the honour of addressing you at the start of this crucial session.

Today I will discuss how our response to the current geopolitical divide must incorporate a new dimension.

However, before proceeding, I would like to refer to something from the past.

Something that dates back to well before relations between the European Union and Canada.

Because the depth of our ties cannot be measured in terms of trade, nor is it set out in our treaties.

Our ties are deeply rooted in our land.

In the heart of Germany, above Weimar, lies a wooded ridge called the Ettersberg. For decades, Goethe walked there, pondered and wrote.

An oak tree on that ridge came to bear his name, a living monument to the highest ideals of European culture.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, that very same oak tree found itself trapped behind the barbed wire of Buchenwald, a silent witness to humanity’s deepest moral failure.

Goethe understood that ideals must be won through struggle, and that values do not defend themselves. Indeed, at the end of Faust, the old man’s final vision is of a free people in a free land.

Only those who must win them anew every day deserve freedom and life. Freedom and life are only deserved by winning them anew every day.

Every day. Not just once, in 1945, 1956 or 1989. Every day, including today.

Freedom was won thanks to the heroism of the European resistance during the war. It was nurtured by the founders of the European Coal and Steel Community in the aftermath of the conflict. It was fostered by the creation of the European Community. It was preserved by the establishment of the European Union. And it has grown thanks to its enlargement following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The values symbolised by Goethe’s oak tree have also endured, partly because the ideals born in the shade of its branches crossed the Atlantic.

In 1917, amidst the devastation of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a young Canadian lieutenant named Leslie Miller gathered a handful of acorns from the ravaged European landscape. He took them home and planted them on Canadian soil, in Milliken, Ontario, where they grew into a majestic forest.

A century later, a profound cycle of renewal has come full circle. Cuttings from Leslie Miller’s Canadian oak trees have been brought back to France and replanted on the very same ridge at Vimy where they were originally grown.

This is the essence of the partnership between Canada and the European Union. Seeds, values, ideas, trade, people and progress, carried back and forth across the Atlantic for centuries.

We are not allies of convenience. We do not pursue zero-sum agreements. Our commitment to the rule of law and our unwavering defence of human dignity, individual freedom and democracy are rooted in the same deep foundations, with the same unwavering dedication.

We share common values, for which we have always fought and which we must remain ever vigilant in defending.

We believe that a strong economy is not an end in itself, but a means to a just society. We are committed guardians of our natural heritage. We believe that our prosperity grows when it is shared.

This is a deliberate choice, not a coincidence.

In his writings, Goethe borrowed a term from the chemists of his time: Wahlverwandtschaft. The elective affinity of different elements that combine due to their natural mutual attraction.

Canada and Europe are not linked by geography, even though we share a 3,000-kilometre Arctic border. We are linked by an affinity — one that is elective, chosen and renewed, and all the stronger for it.

Today, our societies are being shaken by new storms: the upheavals linked to climate change, the erosion of democratic norms, and the use of trade as a weapon.

The multilateral institutions on which we relied have been weakened.

Sovereignty and openness are difficult to reconcile today. Economic integration is now being used as a weapon, and customs duties as a means of exerting pressure. Financial mechanisms are being employed for coercive purposes. Supply chains represent vulnerabilities to be exploited.

Technology is transforming the nature of war, the structure of economies and the ability of states to govern.

Technology platforms aspire to sovereignty. They want to set the terms of access. They want to dictate the rules of regulation – and even circumvent them. They want to control our data, spread disinformation and steal our children’s childhoods.

This is a fierce storm. A single tree will fall. A forest will not.

For beneath the forest canopy, the roots of an oak tree intertwine with those of its neighbours, exchanging nutrients, combining their strength, and creating a resilient and self-sufficient ecosystem.

Together, Canada and the European Union can stabilise our foundations to safeguard our values, whilst forming a protective canopy under which our citizens can thrive.

Sovereignty requires resilience: the ability to withstand shocks.

Sovereignty goes beyond the ability to feed, sustain and defend ourselves. Today, it requires secure access to artificial intelligence, semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technologies, vaccines and satellite communications.

We all have significant gaps in these strategic capabilities, and each of us relies on individual nations or companies to fill them. This creates vulnerabilities, particularly when supposedly ‘global’ companies turn out to be national in nature when a crisis strikes.

Filling these gaps is not possible on our own, but it is entirely achievable collectively.

The institutions we have inherited are organised geographically. The strategic capabilities we need are organised by function. We can form alliances based on function, if we are bold and determined.

We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the apparent scale of the task.

Just as domination is the arrogance of the hegemon, so perfection is the enemy of the good.

The economics are clear: the leverage held by the powerful in a relationship of exploitation collapses well before full independence is achieved. Diversity confers an advantage.

The aim is not self-sufficiency. It is collective resilience.

This mutual benefit lies at the heart of the case for a deeper partnership between Canada and Europe.

Europe brings market power. In-depth research. Advanced manufacturing. The ability to set standards that the world often adopts. A defence industrial base undergoing rapid reconstruction.

Canada provides energy on a massive scale and in every form required by the energy transition. It possesses one of the world’s largest reserves of critical minerals. It has extensive capabilities in space, artificial intelligence and quantum technology. It boasts one of the world’s most robust banking systems and the most experienced pension management. It has a unique Arctic geography and privileged access to both Atlantic and Pacific networks.

Where our strengths differ, they complement one another. Where they overlap, they create scale. We must build on each other’s strengths — with determination, a systematic approach and speed.

We have already made a start with CETA, one of the world’s most successful trade agreements. We are developing our Strategic Partnership Agreement. And we have begun to capitalise on Canada’s role as the first non-European member of SAFE.

However, the ecosystem we have built is not yet a match for the ferocity of climate change. Nor is it moving fast enough to keep pace with the speed of the upheavals.

Yesterday, President von der Leyen spoke of moving beyond CETA towards an Alliance for the Future — opening the door to Canada as the European Union’s first associate member. We welcome this ambition: polls show that an overwhelming majority of Canadians support much closer ties.

An alliance for the future is a unique and positive approach that we will define together, building on our shared strengths and grounded in shared values.

Canada and Europe should ensure our strategic autonomy through deep cooperation across the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals, defence industrial capacity, artificial intelligence and computing power, energy security, space and payments.

We should be moving towards seamless digital trade in non-agricultural goods and a wide range of services.

We should strengthen the ties between our peoples, enabling our young people to live, work and study wherever they wish on both sides of the Atlantic.

Canada’s participation in Erasmus+ could offer your students and ours greater opportunities to study at some of the world’s best universities, to broaden their horizons and to forge lasting bonds that will underpin our partnership for the future.

Canada’s participation in the next generation of Horizon would enable us to pool resources, collaborate on cutting-edge technologies and make the most of our world-class research institutes and universities.

Yesterday, President von der Leyen announced a “new European Corporation for Critical Raw Materials” to source and stockpile “the materials needed for electric cars, chips, batteries, clean technologies and defence”. Canada has deposits of over 34 critical minerals and is among the leading producers of the ten most essential ones for the global energy transition. Our alliance can help meet Europe’s need for a reliable supply, Canada’s need for advanced processing capabilities, and our shared goal of building complete supply chains.

Canada can contribute LNG and hydrogen on a large scale to support European energy security, including by developing and utilising new port infrastructure in the far north and on our east coast. We, in turn, can benefit from your leadership in many clean energy technologies.

We can pool new sovereign computing capacity and build more secure broadband connections between Europe and Asia across our shared geography.

Canada and Europe can join forces to develop security protocols for artificial intelligence, coordinate common standards and enhance transparency, whilst developing applications to enable our governments and businesses to better serve citizens.

Canada and Europe should also explore the creation of an integrated market for financial services, to broaden choice and reduce costs for our citizens, improve access to capital for our businesses, whilst maintaining our world-leading financial resilience.

The opportunities that an alliance for the future can create are, ultimately, the result of our shared values, our compatible systems and our complementary strengths.

Deepening and broadening our relationship will strengthen our sovereignty, improve affordability, opportunities and security for Canadian and European citizens, whilst safeguarding our ability to live our lives as we choose.

I wish to be clear about what I am not proposing. I am not proposing a third bloc to become a powerful rival — just one with better manners.

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

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

An alliance strong enough to prevent anyone from dictating our choices. Open enough for others to join. Grounded sufficiently in principles to ensure that our strength reinforces international law, rather than replacing it.

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 far greater than themselves.

One of those who returned stopped first to gather some acorns.

Let us now delve deeper into these roots, spread these branches, and grow a transatlantic forest under which our citizens can thrive as a free people on free soil.

Every day.

Thank you.