Canada is intensifying its strategic partnership with Australia across critical minerals, defence, clean energy, investment, and artificial intelligence, anchored by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Sydney and Canberra, the first bilateral visit by a Canadian prime minister in nearly two decades. In Canberra, Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese issued a joint statement setting out new cooperation in investment, defence and security, critical minerals, energy, and artificial intelligence. Carney also addressed the Australian Parliament, highlighting the two countries’ shared democratic traditions, resource-based economies, and ambitions to diversify and grow, and framed closer cooperation as a way to enhance stability, security, and prosperity.
Canada welcomed Australia into the Critical Minerals Production Alliance, an initiative launched under Canada’s G7 Presidency in 2025 to expand critical minerals production and processing capacity and diversify supply chains from mine to market. Both countries hold vast reserves of critical minerals that are essential to defence, manufacturing, and technologies such as batteries, cars, and future artificial intelligence systems, and deeper collaboration is intended to spur bilateral investment, create high-paying careers in mining, support clean energy, and strengthen security and defence. The leaders also launched a Clean Energy Partnership to catalyse new trade and investment, scale clean energy technologies, and modernise electricity grids, while committing to intensified cooperation on emergency management, disaster risk reduction, Arctic safeguarding, and tackling criminal networks, smuggling, foreign intelligence manipulation, and cybercrimes.
On defence, Australia is described as Canada’s largest partner in the Indo-Pacific, and both sides are moving to expand military exercises, procurement, intelligence sharing, and industrial collaboration. Training of Canadian Armed Forces personnel on the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system will begin in Australia in mid-2026, supporting Canada’s North American Aerospace Defense Command modernisation with advanced early warning, faster detection and decision making, and long-range surveillance for domestic and continental security. The two governments will explore mechanisms to ease movement of defence equipment and personnel, including discussions on a Status of Forces Agreement, and are examining options such as reduced export controls, reciprocal intellectual property sharing, and co-production of military capabilities. In technology, they endorsed a Memorandum of Understanding on artificial intelligence Safety to link national artificial intelligence safety institutes, and, with India, will advance a further Memorandum of Understanding under the Australia-Canada-India Technology and Innovation Partnership to support joint development and deployment of artificial intelligence and enable trade missions and private-sector collaboration, especially for small and medium-sized businesses and start-ups.
Economic ties are set to deepen through a Memorandum of Understanding between Canadian pension funds and Australian superannuation funds to remove barriers and channel capital into nation-building projects, which supports Canada’s mission to mobilise $1 trillion in total investments over the next five years. While in Australia, Carney met business leaders and Australian pension executives who collectively manage nearly $7 trillion in capital to identify high-potential sectors, and the IFM announced its intention to invest up to $10 billion in Canada. Carney and Albanese also agreed to launch negotiations to modernise the Canada-Australia Tax Treaty to facilitate two-way investment. In 2025, bilateral goods trade between Canada and Australia totalled $7.8 billion and bilateral services trade was valued at $4.6 billion, and in 2024, Canadian direct investment into Australia totalled $58.8 billion while Australian direct investment into Canada reached $27 billion. The relationship will be further structured through regular meetings of economic, industry, natural resources, and defence ministers, and Canada has invited Australian superannuation funds to explore investment opportunities, including in artificial intelligence and advanced technologies, building on both countries’ roles in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which represents 595 million consumers and 11% of global GDP.
