U.S. President Joe Biden is to arrive in Ottawa this Thursday with a long agenda. Officially, he wants to talk to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about supply chains, shared defence needs, Ukraine and Russia, the crisis in Haiti, climate change, opioids and migration.
Trudeau’s announcement of the two-day visit highlighted critical minerals and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic as additional Canadian priorities.
The visit has been structured to maximize Trudeau’s face time with Biden, according to senior government officials who briefed reporters about it Tuesday on condition they not be identified. A number of ministers will be involved, though, including Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Defence Minister Anita Anand.
“We’ll be looking at how we can tackle clean economic growth together in this particular global environment. That’s critical minerals and electric vehicles, and work that benefits workers.
We’ll be looking at addressing common challenges on climate change and biodiversity and also thinking about how we protect some of our shared environmental spaces,” said one of the officials.
“Are we going to sort out every issue? Absolutely not. But our goal is to make progress,” added another.
Many of the matters on the table have profound implications for the Canadian economy. Here’s what you need to know about what’s coming.
