When Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. arrives in Vancouver on July 1, his four-day visit will be the first by a Philippine head of state to Canada in 11 years. More than a bilateral milestone, it will be the clearest indication yet that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Indo-Pacific diplomacy is beginning to come home.
Mr. Carney has travelled across Asia to rebuild strained relationships, deepen ties with trusted partners and position Canada within a wider network of middle powers. Outbound diplomacy, however, is only half the test. Canada’s strategic relevance also depends on whether other leaders are prepared to invest political capital by coming here.
Mr. Marcos may be the first of several Asian leaders to do so, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi among those invited this fall.
The Philippines is an important place to begin because it is where Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy has arguably had its greatest impact.
Since the strategy was launched in 2022, a relationship once anchored primarily in deep people-to-people connections has broadened into a more consequential partnership spanning trade, investment, energy, maritime security, cybersecurity and defence.
Nearly one million Canadians of Filipino descent continue to form the backbone of the relationship, while expanding economic and defence partnerships are giving it greater strategic weight.
The partnership is also rooted in a shared desire for greater agency and choice in an increasingly dangerous world. Although the Philippines remains a U.S. treaty ally, it is seeking a wider range of economic, defence and security partners.
Canada remains deeply integrated with the United States, but it, too, is trying to reduce concentrated dependencies and build stronger relationships elsewhere. Both countries are vulnerable to external economic shocks, weaponized supply chains and growing pressure on national sovereignty, making them natural partners in the kind of practical, purpose-built coalitions that Mr. Carney’s middle-power diplomacy is intended to produce.
Nowhere has the relationship advanced more quickly than in defence and security. Canada and the Philippines signed a Defence Co-operation Memorandum of Understanding in 2024, followed in 2025 by a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement—Canada’s first with an Indo-Pacific country. The agreement establishes the legal framework for the two countries’ armed forces to train and operate in each other’s territory.
In 2026, Canadian personnel moved for the first time from observer status to participating actively in the Philippines’ largest annual military exercise, Balikatan.
Earlier this month, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro became the first Philippine defence minister to visit Canada. During his visit, the two countries signed a Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement and a statement of intent setting out a road map for closer co-operation in maritime security, joint exercises and defence industry.
The value of these agreements lies in their practical effects. They improve interoperability, widen Manila’s security relationships and demonstrate that Canada can contribute useful capabilities in maritime domain awareness, cyber resilience, training and logistics.
Canada’s Dark Vessel Detection program, which helps Philippine authorities identify vessels engaged in illegal or unreported activity, is precisely the kind of specialized contribution that regional partners need and value.
This co-operation also carries wider significance. The Philippines faces persistent Chinese coercion in the South China Sea, and Mr. Marcos’s visit comes just before the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling that rejected the legal basis for Beijing’s expansive maritime claims.
Canada has consistently supported the Philippines in upholding its claims per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has a direct interest in freedom of navigation and the stability of the sea lanes on which global commerce depends. Strengthening Philippine capacity is therefore not an act of distant solidarity; it is an investment in the regional order that underpins Canadian prosperity.
Security co-operation may have advanced fastest, but economics will ultimately determine whether the broader partnership becomes durable. Bilateral merchandise trade reached $3.4-billion in 2025, while Canadian direct investment in the Philippines rose by more than 40 per cent. Those figures demonstrate momentum, but they remain modest relative to the size of the opportunity.
The resilience of the relationship will depend not only on defence, energy and infrastructure, but also on the people who connect the two countries. The Filipino Canadian community provides a foundation of trust, knowledge and commercial connectivity that Canada should treat as a strategic advantage.
Negotiations on both Canada–Philippines and Canada–ASEAN free-trade agreements are intended to conclude this year, during the Philippines’ ASEAN chairmanship, creating an opportunity to expand economic engagement and embed the bilateral relationship within a wider regional economic framework.
New trade frameworks, however, will matter only if they generate more investment, trade and commercial activity. Canada’s recent entry into the Luzon Economic Corridor offers one route from political goodwill to concrete projects.
Launched by the Philippines, Japan and the United States, the corridor is intended to mobilize investment in transportation, ports, clean energy, digital connectivity and advanced manufacturing.
Canada’s opening contribution—$2 million in technical assistance—is modest, but its value could extend well beyond that figure if it helps connect Canadian financing, pension capital and private-sector expertise with projects developed alongside trusted partners.
The corridor’s first investor forum, scheduled for Manila on 10-11 September, will offer an early test of that promise, and its clean-energy component points directly to the area in which bilateral co-operation is now most urgent.
In March, the Philippines became the first country in the world to declare a state of national energy emergency in response to the war in Iran, after the conflict disrupted supply chains, drove up fuel prices and exposed the country’s acute dependence on imported petroleum.
Canada can help reduce that vulnerability over time by becoming a reliable diversification partner in oil and liquefied natural gas, uranium and civilian nuclear co-operation, critical minerals, grid modernization and resilient energy infrastructure. Energy is among the clearest levers of Canadian relevance in the region.
Mr. Marcos is expected to take part in a bilateral energy dialogue during the visit, a timely first step. The two governments should build on it by developing an energy-security road map that identifies priority projects, financing tools and timelines.
Reliable and affordable energy is essential to the Philippines’ ambitions in mineral processing, data centres and advanced manufacturing, making a deeper partnership with Canada important to both its economic development and energy security.
Yet the resilience of the relationship will depend not only on defence, energy and infrastructure, but also on the people who connect the two countries. The Filipino Canadian community provides a foundation of trust, knowledge and commercial connectivity that Canada should treat as a strategic advantage.
In his meetings with Mr. Marcos, Mr. Carney should build on that advantage by advancing more predictable labour mobility, stronger protections for Filipino temporary workers, improved recognition of skills and credentials, and deeper tourism and education partnerships.
A foreign policy that speaks of resilience abroad must also demonstrate fairness toward the people who sustain the relationship at home.
Mr. Marcos’s visit is expected to elevate Canada-Philippines relations to a strategic partnership, accompanied by agreements on energy and tourism and a series of business memoranda of understanding. That designation would formalize a relationship already moving from goodwill to practical co-operation.
But its real value will be measured by what follows: more trade and investment, stronger energy and security ties, and fairer, more predictable mobility.
Mr. Carney’s middle-power diplomacy rests on a persuasive proposition: Canada can strengthen its sovereignty and economic resilience by building overlapping coalitions with countries that share specific interests, even when they do not align on everything.
The Philippines offers an early test of whether that proposition can produce tangible results.
If Ottawa can turn this visit into sustained economic and strategic gains, it will demonstrate that middle-power diplomacy can do more than diversify Canada’s relationships. It can expand Canada’s choices, strengthen its capacity to act and give it greater room to manoeuvre in a more dangerous world.
That is how Canada’s Indo-Pacific diplomacy truly comes home.
This article first appeared in Policy Magazine on June 29, 2026.
