Anand to join U.K.-led talks on Strait of Hormuz following trip to Riyadh

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand will join talks Thursday with her counterparts from more than 30 other nations on finding diplomatic options to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz trade corridor.

Anand said all countries involved in the U.K.-hosted talks should know Canada will not hesitate to help secure the strait once there is a ceasefire.

“Canada will be advocating for freedom of navigation at all times and the need to ensure that international maritime law and the law of the sea is respected,” Anand said in an interview Wednesday.

She said that while the government has not yet decided how Canada could help reopen the strait following a ceasefire, she suggested it could contribute vessels, demining expertise, intelligence and cyber capacities.

“How that particular effort is presented is a topic of conversation now,” Anand said. “I want to underline that that is a conversation that is still occurring.”

The Iran war has disrupted shipments of energy commodities through the strait, causing global oil prices to surge over the past month. Iran has laid sea mines and attacked commercial ships passing through.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran’s foreign ministry have been at odds over whether Iran wants a ceasefire. When Trump addressed Americans on the war late Wednesday evening, he said the U.S. will hit Iran hard over the next few weeks and send the country “back to the stone ages.”

Roland Paris, an international relations professor at the University of Ottawa, said the Canadian government has been right to set out a ceasefire as its condition for getting involved in any effort to reopen the strait. He said there would still need to be a clear, “viable plan” in place before Canada commits to anything.

“Canada does have some capabilities that it could contribute. They’re limited. They might include imagery analysis, other kinds of intelligence collection and monitoring,” Paris said.

“I don’t see even a reliable reopening of the strait without there being some kind of negotiated ceasefire between the United States and Iran. (Trump) may be tempted to escalate, but I think that would be doubling down on a bet that’s not paying off.”

Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Justin Trudeau’s government, said Canada will want to be slow and cautious in its approach as the situation evolves, especially given Trump’s frequently shifting positions on the war.

A number of experts have pointed out that Canada likely has very little to contribute militarily to the strait. The Canadian Armed Forces is stretched thin, with thousands of troops deployed to Latvia, an ongoing personnel crisis, limited anti-drone warfare equipment and aging fleets.

Only about 59 per cent of the entire Royal Canadian Navy fleet is serviceable. It has four Kingston class vessels that can do mine sweeping, although the navy is in the process of divesting itself of those aging ships and has plans to redistribute minesweeping capabilities to other vessels.

“The state of our fleets at sea and land forces, our commitments in Latvia means that we have, in my view, very limited expeditionary capacity to offer,” said Wendy Gilmour, vice-chair of the Conference of Defence Associations think tank.

“That doesn’t mean to say that we don’t have incremental capabilities, like specialist planning personnel or prospectively individual aircraft for small periods of time, like we did in Mali or elsewhere.”

A ceasefire remains out of sight as the war threatens the security of Gulf states and spills out into a broader conflict in the Middle East, with Israel dispatching ground troops further into Lebanon.

Israel has sent troops into the south of the country with the intention of creating a security zone that stretches some 30 kilometres from the border. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney strengthened his language on the deepening conflict by condemning Israel’s “illegal invasion” of Lebanon.

Asked about Canada’s position Wednesday, Anand said the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah must cease its attacks and Lebanon’s “territorial integrity must not be violated.”

“Moving the boundary in Lebanon is in our view unacceptable,” she said.

Asked if she would summon Israel’s ambassador, Anand only said diplomacy is “best done behind closed doors.”

“I’m continually in touch with my our allies as to what our collective next steps will be.”

Anand just returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia, where she met with top-level officials to discuss deepening trade ties and finding ways to reduce tensions in the region as the war escalates.

Even though Saudi Arabia was hit by retaliatory strikes the night before the minister arrived, Anand said it was important for her to go to Riyadh to thank the Saudi government in person for helping about 300 Canadians leave the region.

Canada has been in talks with the Saudi government about deepening trade ties through a foreign investment framework agreement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2026.

Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press