KANANASKIS — Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to hold bilateral talks with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Alberta on Tuesday.
The G7 continues for its second and final day without U.S. President Donald Trump, who left the talks ahead of schedule on Monday.
Trump, who said he left early to deal with the escalating violence in the Middle East, is missing the sessions Carney set aside to focus on foreign policy.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force 1 Monday evening as he returned to Washington, Trump was asked whether he talked to anyone at the summit about his previous comments about making Canada a U.S. state.
“I think it’s a much better deal for Canada, but you know, it’s up to them,” Trump responded.
He said if Canada doesn’t join the U.S. it will have to pay “a lot of tariffs and things” and said Ottawa would have to pay $71 billion to be part of the “Iron Dome” — an apparent reference to the Golden Dome, a missile defence system he has proposed for the U.S.
Trump said Ottawa and Washington may make a separate deal on the Golden Dome.
Despite Trump’s departure, the G7 agenda is busy.
Carney began his day with a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — their first in-person discussion since the federal government announced it plans to meet the NATO spending target this fiscal year.
The Liberals have outlined plans to rapidly scale up defence spending to the equivalent of two per cent of GDP, a target that Canada has agreed to for over a decade but has never actually met.
Carney thanked Rutte for his leadership of the alliance, which is set to meet next week in the Netherlands.
He said Canada is “stepping up to meet our commitments and (I) look forward to defining those new responsibilities and capabilities.”
Rutte said that with Canada and Portugal promising to boost defence spending, “the whole of NATO will now be in 2025 at two per cent before the summit starts next week in The Hague.”
Carney is expected to meet privately Tuesday with Zelenskyy, who was set to join a G7 leaders working breakfast session on ending Russia’s war.
Modi is to meet with Carney late Tuesday afternoon after attending various meetings, including a discussion of energy sovereignty with peers from Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.
Modi’s visit has prompted angry protests from Sikh separatist groups. In 2023 and 2024, former prime minister Justin Trudeau and the RCMP said there was evidence linking agents of the Indian government to the murder of Canadian Sikh separatist activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., in June 2023.
Last October, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said the police force had evidence linking Indian government officials to other crimes in Canada, including extortion, coercion and homicide.
— With files from Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
