OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is travelling to London on Saturday ahead of a European defence summit Sunday seeking to set the conditions toward a lasting peace in Ukraine.
The summit was announced earlier in the week to involve European leaders, but takes on a new focus with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attending, shortly after an explosive meeting Friday with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
Kyiv and Washington were expected to sign a critical-minerals deal as part of efforts to end Ukraine's war with Russia, but Trump showed open disdain for Zelenskyy after he insisted the deal include security guarantees from the U.S.
Europe was rattled earlier this month by Trump's overtures toward Russia and began making their own plans to beef up defence of Ukraine, seeing it as part of Europe's core security interests.
Canada was not mentioned as one of the countries invited to join the Sunday meeting when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed the event during his trip to Washington to meet with Trump earlier this week.
Steve Hewitt, an intelligence researcher who teaches Canadian studies at the University of Birmingham in England, said the fact Trudeau is going to the summit sends a message on whom Ottawa sees as its partners.
"It's a sort of political statement in many ways," Hewitt said.
"There's a huge amount of symbolism around this meeting."
He said that symbolism can also be seen in Trudeau and various European leaders posting support for Zelenskyy on social media, calling it "a clear positioning" that is at odds with Trump, adding that it's "remarkable" the U.S. is pushing back on Europe's security concerns.
"I don't think there is any parallel, certainly in the last 100 years, for what's happening at the moment — certainly not since World War II with the Cold War," said Hewitt, who is a historian.
However, Aurel Braun, an international studies and political science professor at the University of Toronto, cautioned that while it's a positive sign Canada is attending the European defence summit, Trudeau cannot show up empty handed.
"Look at Keir Starmer, who's saying we are going to, in Britain, increase very sharply within a very short time our defence spending, we're going to reach something like 2.5 per cent," Braun said.
NATO members pledged to spend at least two per cent of GDP on defence spending by 2024.
"We are not even remotely close (in Canada) to the two per cent floor. That's not a ceiling. And so in key ways, it's almost embarrassing that we turn up with very positive rhetoric, but with very little capacity."
Hewitt drew a parallel between Britain's decision to exit the European Union and Canada no longer being able to rely on the U.S. for defence and economic security. "Both countries, in a sense, have been cut adrift, to a certain extent," he said.
Starmer has said he is positioning the U.K. as a bridge between the U.S. and the European Union, and Hewitt said Starmer will "try to keep both sides happy, and it may well end up alienating both sides in the process."
In that light, Canada is seeking stronger ties with partners other than the U.S.
Starmer is set to meet with Zelenskyy ahead of Sunday's talks, and has also invited leaders from NATO, the European Commission, as well as more than a dozen countries including France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.
During his own visit to Washington, Starmer caused a stir among some Canadians by opting against pushing back on Trump's talk of annexing Canada, when asked his thoughts on the idea.
Hewitt said the move was "very insulting" to many Canadians but has had little media coverage in Britain, despite Canadians seeking the U.K. as a close partner and some suggesting King Charles should weigh in on Trump's threats.
"There is a bit of a nostalgia (in) this idea that the U.K. still actively cares about Canada or that King Charles might — independently of the British government — make some sort of political statement," he said.
"Those things aren't going to happen, and I think the Starmer government has calculated that they need to somehow stay on the side of the United States."
Hewitt has lived in Britain for 23 years, and says he is frustrated by "obliviousness here to what is happening in Canada, and the whole focus is on the U.S. — despite the historic ties between Canada and the U.K."
Braun has testified at numerous parliamentary committees that Canada needs to increase its defence spending. It's an issue he said is becoming increasingly important as Russia militarizes the Arctic and China increases its presence in the north, calling itself a "near Arctic state."
He said that Canada should aim to hit its NATO target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence in order to be taken seriously in the multinational alliance.
"I would much rather have money spent on education and on health care -- I'm an academic -- but the reality is that we have endemic conflict in the international system," Braun said.
"Russia remains a threat. China, in some ways, is an even bigger threat. This is the international system as it is, not as we wish it to be. We have to deal with it."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 1, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
