The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and the Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre, met in Ottawa to reaffirm the strong and enduring partnership between both countries.
As Arctic nations and NATO Allies, Canada and Norway continue to work together to strengthen collective security, support sustainable economic growth, and advance prosperity for northern and Indigenous communities.
Against a backdrop of continued geopolitical uncertainty and evolving security challenges, the Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to NATO and continued support for Ukraine. The Canadian decision to join the German-Norwegian Type 212CD submarine cooperation will mark a significant step forward in the Canada-Norway defence relation and create a once-in-a-generation opportunity to form a strategic partnership and deepen military, industrial, and technological cooperation. Building on this momentum and the existing Memorandum of Understanding regarding bilateral defence cooperation from 2023, Canada and Norway intend, following the conclusion of negotiations for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP), to pursue an enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement to support the next phase of bilateral defence cooperation.
Since the adoption of the Joint Statement on Strategic Cooperation in March 2026, Canada and Norway have also deepened collaboration in the Arctic and across defence, critical minerals, energy, science, and emerging technologies. The leaders welcomed the progress achieved and agreed to further strengthen bilateral cooperation to address evolving geopolitical, economic, and climate-related challenges.
Commitment to Arctic security and cooperation
Canada and Norway continue to work together to bolster deterrence and defence in the Arctic: Arctic security is national security for both countries. As agreed by Leaders in March 2026, Canada and Norway are establishing a bilateral Arctic Dialogue to strengthen cooperation across key areas, including strategic surveillance, situational awareness, interoperability, and research & development. Practical cooperation is also underway through a partnership agreement signed in June 2026 between the Canadian and Norwegian Coast Guards, where both services have already undertaken joint training exercises in Canadian and Norwegian Arctic waters.
Underpinning our commitment to Arctic security and stability is the need to understand the region’s unique realities. Science and research are central to that effort. Canada and Norway have strengthened cooperation through a plan to develop a joint research agenda to advance understanding of the Arctic, including collaboration on climate data, research security and knowledge mobility. This work will be supported by a roadmap identifying priority areas of interest. To that end, Polar Knowledge Canada and the Norwegian Polar Institute have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on both Arctic and Antarctic research and provide a platform for both Canada and Norway to increase international leadership within the framework of the upcoming 5th International Polar Year. Building on this foundation, Canada is also deepening collaboration with the five Nordic countries through a partnership between Polar Knowledge Canada and Nordic Energy Research, advancing cooperation on energy solutions for Arctic and remote communities and leveraging our shared expertise as Arctic nations.
Support for Ukraine
Canada and Norway remain steadfast in their support for Ukraine, in its fight for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Norway and Canada continue to work together with partners to operationalize commitments to robust security guarantees for Ukraine, including strengthening military support and support to reconstruction efforts, while coordinating on sanctions, including countering Russia’s shadow fleet.
The Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) and the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA) finalized their partnership announced in March 2026, that supports the procurement of military assets for Ukraine.
Next week in Toronto, Canada and Norway will co-host with Ukraine the Second International Conference on Returning Ukrainian Children, Detained Civilians, and Prisoners of War. This ministerial conference will mobilize international action and strengthen cooperation to help Ukraine bring its people home and support their rehabilitation and reintegration. Canada and Norway will also work alongside partners to support the rehabilitation, reintegration, and economic participation of Ukrainian veterans, including exploring potential Norwegian participation in the new multi-donor initiative launched in Calgary on September 10.
Industrial and economic cooperation
Canadian and Norwegian companies continue to advance industrial cooperation, supporting security, sustainability and job creation. More than fifty Norwegian companies have established long-term footprints in Canada, strengthening security, creating jobs, and supporting resilient supply chains across strategic sectors.
This includes new partnerships between Canadian and Norwegian firms. Norway’s Kongsberg, a contributor to the TKMS 212CD Combat Management System, has invested $76.5 million in a Marine Innovation Simulation Centre of Excellence with the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Kongsberg is also partnering with NAV Canada on the world’s largest remote digital air traffic services project and has recently signed an MoU with OSI Maritime Systems to advance Canadian maritime capabilities.
As both maritime and Arctic nations, the partnership between VARD and its Canadian subsidiary, Vard Marine, demonstrates how Norwegian and Canadian industry can strengthen shared security and industrial cooperation in shipbuilding designed for Arctic environments. Vard Marine’s portfolio of icebreakers and ice-capable vessels includes the world’s most recent icebreaker delivery, as well as delivering the original vessel designs to the Royal Canadian Navy for the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships Program, and to the Canadian Coast Guard for one of the Polar Icebreakers.
Canada and Norway are also both leaders on energy. In a recent agreement with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Equinor is now advancing a significant offshore project in Canada Located approximately 500 kilometres offshore Newfoundland, the Bay du Nord development is a deepwater oil project that is expected to become one of Canada’s most significant new offshore energy developments, reinforcing Newfoundland and Labrador’s role as a key contributor to North American energy security.
Space
Canada and Norway are collaborating on space and other enabling capabilities that are critical to sovereignty and security and economic resilience, including in the North. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA) finalized the Memorandum of Understanding announced in March 2026. Under this partnership, the two agencies will advance collaboration on space-based and dual-use capabilities that support Arctic and northern needs, strengthen coordination and information sharing among government, research, and industry stakeholders, and leverage their shared membership in the European Space Agency to champion projects and opportunities of mutual interest.
Canada and Norway also continue to strengthen bilateral defence institutional relationships through the implementation of the Letter of Intent between Canada’s Department of National Defence and the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Defence. Through ongoing collaboration on responsive space capabilities, both countries are working to improve interoperability between their satellite systems and demonstrate innovative capabilities using their combined space assets and expertise.
Canadian and Norwegian industries are also building business-to-business partnerships. On the margins of the leaders’ visit, Kongsberg and MDA Space are signing a Memorandum of Understanding focused on multi-domain capabilities and space-based solutions for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnections (ISR), including maritime situational awareness in the Arctic. Kongsberg is also signing an agreement with Canada’s Telesat to explore collaboration opportunities related to Telesat’s Lightspeed low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network and associated capabilities, including integration of connectivity for IRS and other solutions.
Digital sovereignty and artificial intelligence cooperation
Canada and Norway continue to explore opportunities for enhanced cooperation on digital sovereignty and artificial intelligence (AI) that can help grow their capacity and reduce their dependencies.
As we enter this new age of accelerated technological change, it is increasingly important to ensure that AI is adopted and governed in ways that reflect our shared values.
Canada and Norway will explore cooperation to advance safe and trustworthy AI, including approaches to the testing, evaluation and responsible deployment of advanced AI systems, and will also explore avenues for cooperation on the use of AI in the public sector, including the exchange of experiences and best practices on the responsible adoption of AI to improve public services, increase efficiency and support better outcomes for citizens.
Critical minerals
Under the Memorandum of Understanding on critical minerals announced in March 2026, Canada and Norway are now collaborating to build secure, resilient critical minerals value chains. Specifically, the Geological Survey of Canada and the Geological Survey of Norway have agreed to work together on joint critical minerals mapping and the exchange of geoscientific expertise. This is a fundamental step for future efforts to develop joint project pipelines and shared supply chains.
Climate, biodiversity, and oceans
Canada and Norway reaffirm their shared commitment to international climate and nature action, including the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In the Arctic, Canada and Norway are advancing efforts to address climate change by leveraging our leadership and technical expertise to reduce short-lived climate pollutants in support of the Global Methane Pledge and the Arctic Council Framework for Action on Enhanced Black Carbon and Methane Reductions. As Steering Committee members of the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, Canada and Norway are working together to reduce tropical deforestation.
Canada and Norway will strengthen their collaboration on climate finance to developing countries, with the aim of avoiding or reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Canada and Norway are working together to sustainably manage 100 per cent of the ocean under their national jurisdiction through Sustainable Ocean Plans. As members of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, we are championing the implementation of this approach globally and encouraging all coastal and ocean states to adopt it.
As members of the Ocean Eye International Alliance in support of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), co-chaired by Canada and the European Union, Canada and Norway recognize the critical role of sustained ocean observation in supporting weather forecasting, early warning systems, climate adaptation, ocean health, and a sustainable blue economy. We are committed to strengthening support for ocean observations and the infrastructure needed to ensure the long-term sustainability of GOOS.
As the host of the 12th Our Ocean Conference, in Halifax in 2027, Canada welcomes continued collaboration with Norway to deliver concrete, measurable global commitments for global ocean conservation and sustainable ocean management.
Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Støre agreed to remain in close contact to ensure that the close collaboration between Canada and Norway continues to advance the safety, security and sovereignty of our people, and to build prosperous and green economies of the future.
Noah Note: Wow. There is a lot here for what was supposed to be a simple Sunday presser. Especially this late in the day, not that I’m complaining. A lot gets a nod here, and if the Prime Minister (who definitely does things with me in mind) wanted to make me and my Norway campaigning ass happy, he is making the right moves.
Most significantly from a strategic sense, building on the momentum from CPSP and the existing 2023 bilateral defence cooperation MOU, we got some confirmation that Canada and Norway intend to negotiate a new Defence Cooperation Agreement after a contract on submarines has been signed.
This isn’t really a surprise, mind you; the intent was always for CPSP to be an anchor to wider strategic agreements and partnerships. The thing is that oftentimes this discussion has happened in relation to Germany and Canada, with Norway relegated to a sideline player.
That isn’t really fair to Norway, who is an equal partner in the Type 212CD and a major contributor to the platform. While the design might be German, inside the submarine you will find something that is significantly Norwegian, and Canadian in its own right. The ORCCA CMS has a lot of Canadian work put into it from the team at Kongsberg Geospatial, and their contributions to it should be recognized as already contributing to the 212CD.
Along with that, and unmentioned here, are several other contributions Kongsberg is making to the Canadian ecosystem. Kongsberg has committed to establishing a Combat Management System Centre of Excellence in Ottawa as part of their CPSP package, and Kongsberg Vanguard LP, a joint venture between Adaptive Marine Solutions, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, and Salt Ship Design, will deliver the design for the 6 Mid-Shore Multi-Mission Vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard.
We don’t know the full extent of Kongsberg’s offerings, and I won’t speculate here. I will say that I expect to see a lot more, and I know there are some really cool talks ongoing.
We see some formulations here in the areas that the Defence Cooperation Agreement might prioritize. It is very clear that space is a major area of collaboration that both governments recognize as a key sector. Kongsberg has been a fairly heavy player in Canada’s space ecosystem. Kongsberg Geospatial has an MOU to provide a digital mission control centre for NordSpace’s upcoming Atlantic Spaceport Complex. Kongsberg NanoAvionics and Kepler Communications also have an agreement for the supply of satellite buses signed earlier this year.
Building off the CSA–NOSA MOU from earlier this year, we get a lot of space commitments today. That includes two new agreements for Kongsberg with MDA and Telesat. Telesat already had an existing agreement with Space Norway regarding Lightspeed access. This further expands on that, but feels very exploratory in nature.
With Lightspeed being utilized as the solution for ESCP-P, and both Canada and Norway being members of the new Hybrid Alliance Layered Operations in Space (HALO) Initiative aiming to promote multinational integration and collaboration on space-based networks, there is already a heavily built, easy-to-leverage foundation for Norway to join the ESCP-P ecosystem as a partner nation, something I would love to see.
Bringing together our Arctic partners and our space-based capabilities under unified banners not only promotes joint developments such as this, but also provides some needed stability and anchor customers that Telesat, who is closing in on several financial humps, could certainly use right now.
Supporting industry cannot come from us as a sole customer, and existing assets like Lightspeed and the capabilities they provide should be something that is used as leverage and avenues for collaboration, especially when there is an obvious lack of available providers, especially those with a specific Arctic mandate and focus.
That is a major asset to have under our banner, and we should utilize it to its full extent in discussions like this. The same goes for MDA, who is rapidly expanding both their European and Maritime Domain Awareness presence with the acquisition of France’s CLS, which includes seemingly taking on CLS’s role as the technical operator behind the EU Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) Data Centre.
With the acquisition of CLS, MDA now becomes a major backbone to Europe’s Maritime Domain Awareness, specifically in the space domain. This agreement naturally comes with that expected position, so long as things go through. MDA now takes on that collective responsibility, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see similar agreements between MDA and other key players regarding space-based Maritime Domain Awareness come to light over the next year.
I also know most of you don’t care for letters of intent, but I do want to recognize here its inclusion. The MDA and Telesat agreements cover the talks of interoperability between our satellite systems, but there is also a noted mention here of rapid-launch/rapid-reconstitution systems that piqued my interest.
There are also talks of pooling existing resources, which makes me wonder if we could see collaboration between Andøya and Canada’s existing space launch facilities to facilitate research, the implementation of new technologies, and potentially collaboration on launches. That could be very critical for building Northern launch capacity, which is already strained on a collective footprint (as we often discuss).
Outside space, we get some good news updates on several of the partnerships outlined in March, including the Bilateral Arctic Dialogue and CCC–NDMA procurement partnership, which are both now confirmed to be stood up, which is good. Dialogues are always important, even if to many they might feel a bit slow and boring. They’re often the places we get early insight into priorities, upcoming areas of collaboration, and updates to ongoing initiatives.
As a consequence, they often go unreported and underdiscussed by many, which means a lot of critical information often gets lost. It’s why I put a very big emphasis on keeping up to date on these kinds of exchanges. It is easy to miss, and oftentimes of critical importance.
We also get some extra shoutouts; a lot of Kongsberg. I have had a chance to actually see the system being implemented by NAV Canada in person, and see a demonstration of what it can do. I was seriously impressed by the responsiveness and the work that went into building a remote operating system able to withstand Arctic conditions and be able to be interconnected across the country, in places where traditional infrastructure and support are often very limited.
Kongsberg put a lot of work into building out that system, and they were insanely proud of it when I went to see it. I am happy to see it get the nod here. Not mentioned was JSM, which I found weird. Also, congrats to Vard for getting the nod. By far my favourite Canadian-Norwegian-Italian company, I do think it’s nice to see acknowledgements, though, of the interpersonal relationships industry has going for it.
It’s important to highlight our connections, how we work with each other, and how intertwined our ecosystems are, because in many cases it gets lost, and in that process, people tend to think nothing exists. That often makes it harder to sell people on these sorts of partnerships and relationships when they don’t understand what exists, and how deep it already goes.
There is overall a lot here, but most of it is teases for something bigger, something greater, a relationship and partnership that the federal government is hyping as one of the largest we’ve committed to in recent memory. That is hard to top when looking at other examples like Korea, Germany, or Sweden. All of which got significant agreements.
My hope here is that we tackle specifics. I want to see specific collaboration on platforms like 212CD, Type 26, etc., outlined. I want to see training initiatives given a nod, stockpiling, and the sharing of critical components. I want to see supply chain commitments. I want to see deeper collaboration between our navies and air forces. Like the Swedish agreement, I want it to set up an ecosystem that can be further developed.
Not mentioned here also is the JEF. I thought it would get a nod; I guess not. Either way, this is a fantastic commitment to see, and I am overjoyed to see this relationship given the love I believe it deserves.
I know it’s a side topic but I like to hear more bout the Kongsberg-NAV Canada angle.