Prime Minister: Meeting with Prime Minister of Canada

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Stansgate]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when the Prime Minister expects to meet the new Prime Minister of Canada.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons, the UK and Canada are the closest of allies. The Prime Minister has congratulated Mark Carney on his forthcoming appointment as Canada’s new Prime Minister. He looks forward to working closely with him on shared international priorities through the G7 and to further deepening the UK-Canada relationship together.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. Mr Carney is indeed well known in this country. In the light of growing tension and destabilising global uncertainty, with the world apparently changing in front of our very eyes, does my noble friend agree that the Prime Minister has been skilfully navigating his way towards a different role for the UK in international affairs? In that context, when he next meets the Prime Minister-elect of Canada, will he be able to offer some reassurance to a fellow head of a Commonwealth Government that the UK values its friendship with Canada and its close links and ties, and that Canada will, and should, remain a sovereign country?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, the UK and Canada are of course the closest of allies. We have a proud history of partnership built on shared values. We share a sovereign; we are among the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world; and the British and Canadians fought bravely alongside one another in two world wars, and in nearly every major conflict for more than a century. It should go without saying that the future of Canada lies solely in the hands of the Canadian people.