Enter the Nordic Era

Its not often I get to be a bit giddy about trips. Oftentimes when a Minister goes abroad I tend to ignore it unless something big comes out of it, which is rare. However there are times when trips are big enough, and extensive enough that I can't help but cover them.

This is one of those such cases. As we reported earlier Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions Mélanie Joly and Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr are in Stockholm today.

Today the two will meet with Ebba Busch, Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy, Business and Industry and Pål Jonson, Sweden's Minister for Defence to discuss key areas of cooperation such as aerospace, defence, shipbuilding, biomanufacturing, automotive, mining and telecommunications.

After that they will be joining Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand, who today is in Finland. She will be attending the Nordic Five today and tomorrow. She will also meet with Finland President Alexander Stubb tomorrow.

She will also be doing the rounds with the major Foreign Ministers of the nordic countries including Finnush Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenegard and Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

On Wednesday the three of them will also be present at Helsinki Shipyard where Davies plans to hold the steel cutting ceremony for CCGS Imnaryuaq where they will also hold meetings with officials from Davies.

The three of them will be in Scandinavia until the 22nd. Sadly at the time of this writing none of their offices have gotten back to me with statements or itineraries. That doesnt stop me though.

This also comes after the Danish Greenland Committee also made a weekend stop in Iqualuit and Ottawa to discuss Arctic cooperation. We also had HDMS Lauge Koch make a port visit in Halifax last week, where she will join HMCS William Hall as part of OP Nanook.

HDMS Lauge Koch in Halifax last week

Also missed a bit but the Swedish Icebreaker Oden and the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent are also touring around the Arctic together this month as part of the Canada–Sweden Arctic Ocean 2025 expedition. They will be mapping the mapping out the Arctic Ocean Seabed!

Oden and Louis S. St-Laurent at the North Pole today!

While abroad, as Bloomberg got before me, Joly will hold a bilateral meeting with Saab and Ericsson. Ive also heard that officials will meet with representatives from Patria and Nokia in Finland as well as other Finnish shipyards like Rauma to discuss the ICE Pact and cooperation opportunities.

Gripen will be discussed, if that was in anyone's doubts. I've heard before, as said in the newsletter, that Joly is one voice pushing harder to explore alternatives. Shes been taking an active lead in meeting other companies like Dassault and Boeing before this about alternatives.

So this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, least of all those who expect Saab wouldnt bring it up. It isnt the only thing on the agenda though. There will also be conversations about Globaleye. The Liberal government is pushing for a Canadian solution, which inevitably means a Global-based platform. That puts Saab upfront.

Saab has recently come to agreement with the Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) of France for two Globaleyes on the Global airframe. This was a fairly big win not just for Saab but Bombardier, as the expectation was that the future AEW&C aircraft for the French Air and Space Force would be based on a Dadsault Falcon.

Saab is also actively engaging with other Nordic nations, South Korea, and Poland on further sales. That means a lot of potential collaboration between Saab and Bombardier.

And despite the intense groaning that Bombardier produces from many… they are still a major part of our Aerospace sector, a sector that produces over 30B annually and supports over 200,000 jobs.

Its a sector that, as we discussed before, the government has outlined as a key sector they want to put effort into growing. I would say its one one the top five that I myself hear discussed in circles.

Theres a lot of faith and effort being put into this, which is why any opportunity to not only grow that sector with key players, but also secure some cooperation in high-tech areas like radar development, something Saab has offered will always be a keen interest to government officials.

Of course if you want the full rundown on the AEW project I did a look at it a few weeks ago. These are the two big areas that Saab and the Federal government seem to be aligning on.

I also suspect, despite the far chances, that Saab will try to push the C71 submarine as well. The company in recent months has shifted a lot of their lobbying focus onto CPSP, even if their chances are slim. I would be shocked if it is not at least brought up. Same goes for the T-7 trainer. It hasnt seemingly been a major focus, but a Saab oriented push on the Aerospace sector could see them try to bundle a package of the T-7, Gripen and Globaleye not unlike Lockheed is reportedly trying.

Thats speculative on my part. I have no clue what Saab is thinking. Ericsson is also unsurprising given their Canadian presence and thr desire of the federal government to empower smaller, but still present players to be more active and involved.

A lot of time though will be spent in Finalnd. That is a keen interest to me. Not only are we getting the steel cutting for CCGS Imnaryuaq but also you just don't hear much on thr Finnish side.

Nokia is currently working on a new 600,000 square feet campus that will include new office and retail space in Kanata. They also recently announced a new partnershipwith Bell to expand their G5 collaboration to Cloud and Open RAN deployment.

Patria has also recently engaged on the IFM RFI, a project that many (including myself) expect to go to GDLS-C BUT I appreciate the efforts of others to try and jump on it.

Its not just about equipment

A lot of talks so far have been on the equipment side of things. Understandable given the defence focus and all thats been going on. However I don't expect anything to come from these rounds of talks. Nor do I hold hope for major announcements.

One of the major Foreign policy promises given by the Liberal government during the election was to create a new ‘Economic and Security' relationship with Nordic partners, as well as work towards a comprehensive Arctic Security agreement with allies.

So the desire to expand upon this relationship beyond just the purchase of defence equipment is there, and I would put more attention there than anywhere. These kinds of meetings, especially when nothing big comes from them, tends to be ignored or seen as a waste.

However these kinds of bilateral meetings are an important first step to developing the relationship between our respective blocs. Sharing a collective security environment in the Arctic is an important facilitator, however that alone wont bring us and the Nordics together.

Those of you who have followed the Korean relationship with me have seen how these kinds of meetings can quickly lead into a lot happening. That is the chain of events that we want to see when these kinds of relationships are developing.

It won't come right away, and results will be long telegraphed and take time to be set. They won't come to us so quickly. However I am excited to hear the next steps that come from this, and where we go from here. Future 2+2 meetings would be a nice, really awesome next step to see coming to fruition.

Despite all this I will be keeping a keen eye, and will be keeping track for all you if something happens!