Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Philippine counterpart have concluded talks for a free-trade agreement, which is expected to be formally signed next year.
“A ship that stays in the harbour is safe, but that’s not what a ship is for. And it takes a leader to take the ship out of the harbour into choppy waters and reach a destination,” Carney told Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila.
Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives in Manila on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
“In terms of our relationship, you’ve been able to do that.”
Carney and Marcos were meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.
Both leaders signed a document that formally ends negotiations for the Philippines-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which had started just over a year ago. Ottawa aims to have the actual deal signed next year.
The event took place Saturday in Manila’s time zone, which was Friday evening in Canada.
The ASEAN summit involves 20 heads of government, including guests from outside the region such as U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s fastest growing economic regions and the ASEAN bloc includes nearly 700 million people.
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Canada is also pursuing a broader trade agreement with the ASEAN bloc, which includes the Philippines and 10 other countries such as Thailand.
Ottawa says trade between Canada and ASEAN countries amounted to $52.3 billion last year, a fifth larger than the previous year. The group is key to Carney’s goal of doubling exports to countries other than the U.S. by 2035.
Vina Nadjibulla, co-founder of the Centre for Strategic Statecraft, said the ASEAN summit — along with two others in the region this week — is a chance for Carney to reinforce the importance of Asia to Canadians.
“So much of his diplomacy over the last few months has been focused on Europe, understandably so. But we also need to remind everyone that Canada is a Pacific nation, we have an Indo-Pacific strategy, and the region is really critical to Canada’s prosperity,” she said.
Carney signed a trade deal with Indonesia last autumn. This summer, he signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Philippines. It called for more labour mobility and climate resilience projects between Canada and the Philippines, a country with more than 110 million people.
In 2025, bilateral merchandise trade between the two countries totalled $3.4 billion, with Canada exporting mineral ores, meat, cereals, fertilizers and aircraft, while importing cooking oils, leather and rubber products from the Philippines.
Canada and the Philippines have been in talks on a bilateral trade deal since 2015. Carney and Marcos restarted those efforts a year ago.
During consultations, corporations were broadly supportive of the deal to increase trade, but civil society raised concerns about the Philippines’ track record on the environment, labour and human rights.
That work stemmed from the Indo-Pacific strategy the government released four years ago.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said a year ago that she had asked her officials to update the strategy to better align with Carney’s priorities, such as doubling non-U.S. exports by 2035 and making Canada an energy superpower.
This weekend’s ASEAN summit comes as numerous countries in the region cope with heavy smoke from Indonesian wildfires linked to climate change and palm-oil extraction.
It also comes at a time of rising geopolitical and economic competition between the United States and China. Nadjibulla said that competition has been a factor in most ASEAN summits in recent years, particularly as it affects semiconductors, critical minerals and tariffs.
“Canada wants to be there as an alternative, as a partner that is similar to Japan, Australia, and others who give more options to ASEAN, so that they’re not stuck between these two superpowers,” she said.
Carney is also pushing to get Pacific Rim countries to trade more with the European Union, and is positioning Canada a bridge between larger markets that want to preserve the rules-based trading system being undercut by American and Chinese coercion.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
