Carney calls for expanded trade with Caribbean at Commonwealth leaders meeting

ST JOHN’S — Canada and the Caribbean have barely begun to realize what’s possible in their trading relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a working breakfast of Commonwealth leaders Tuesday.

“There’s more than a million people in Canada who trace their roots back to the region,” Carney told the assembled leaders before attending the opening of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda.

“There is growing trade, $4 billion a year more broadly … It scratches the surface of what’s possible.”

Carney started the day by sitting down with Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who told Carney at the start of their meeting that Canada “as a middle power is very influential in the Commonwealth globally.”

“And as we have discussions to make the Commonwealth more consequential, your contribution will be extremely valuable,” he added.

Carney saluted Browne’s leadership on the Commonwealth meeting, calling it “an extraordinarily important meeting at a crucial time.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand joined Carney at the working breakfast, where the prime minister gave each of the assembled Caribbean leaders a bottle of maple syrup with his own brand on it.

Heads of state and foreign ministers from Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago were in attendance, along with the secretary-general of CARICOM, an intergovernmental organization representing Caribbean nations.

“We all know how much the world has changed. We’re all responding to it. We all know that the best response is to build out the close ties of friendship,” Carney said in his opening remarks at the breakfast.

Carney is spending one day in Antigua, with a full itinerary that includes other bilateral meetings and executive sessions, as well as a lunch and dinner hosted by King Charles.

Ahead of the breakfast meeting, Antigua’s high commissioner to Canada said he hopes that Canada’s relationship with the Caribbean, which used to be closer, can now be rebuilt.

Ronald Sanders told The Canadian Press “Canada needs to pay a little more attention to the Caribbean,” adding Carney is likely to find common ground with other leaders during his visit.

During his time in Antigua, Carney will also meet one-on-one with the leaders of Australia, Guyana and Ghana.

Much of the focus of the Commonwealth meeting will be on trade, though experts say it’s also an opportunity to boost diplomatic ties with a variety of countries.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary coalition of 56 countries, the large majority of which have ties to the former British Empire.

The trip is the latest in a flurry of international trips Carney has been making since he became prime minister last year — part of an ongoing attempt to pivot Canada away from dependence on the United States.

The modern Commonwealth was established in 1949 and Commonwealth countries together represent 2.7 billion people. Commonwealth members include large countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, India and Nigeria, and many of the world’s smallest countries — such as Tuvalu, a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean with a population of about 10,000.

Experts say ties with Commonwealth countries can help Canada win support in multilateral forums like the United Nations, a strategy Canada has used in the past.

Ahead of the trip, government officials described the Commonwealth meeting as a platform for Canada to expand trade, investment and strategic co-operation, and noted Canada currently has $100 billion in trade with Commonwealth countries.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2026.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press