Prime Minister Mark Carney took part in a signing ceremony at the Saudi Arabia-Canada Investment Forum in Jeddah on Thursday, part of a bilateral visit aimed at deepening trade and investment ties between the two countries. The Globe and Mail reported the visit included meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a roster of Saudi business leaders.

Carney arrived in Jeddah Wednesday night, travelling from the NATO summit in Ankara as part of a week-long Middle East trip. His wife, Diana Fox Carney, accompanied him. The Prime Minister's Office had flagged the itinerary weeks earlier: a June 30 news release scheduled the bilateral leg for July 8 to 10. Carney was greeted with a welcome ceremony alongside Prince Saud on arrival, according to the Washington Post.

Thursday's meetings brought Carney together with Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Bandar al Khorayef, and Ma'aden CEO Bob Wilt — a lineup that signals where Riyadh wants Canadian capital and expertise to land. The Canadian delegation travelling with Carney included Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Defence Minister David McGuinty, Defence Investment Agency CEO Doug Guzman and Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi.

Jeff Steiner, chair of the Canada-Saudi Arabia Business Council, called the visit a "high-water mark" for the relationship. Steiner told the Globe that opportunities for Canadian firms exist across health care, energy, tourism and education, but singled out mining and critical minerals as the area of sharpest focus, noting Saudi Arabia has made mining its "second pillar" economy alongside oil.

That framing matters for anyone tracking the Kingdom's Vision 2030 diversification push. Saudi state media had already signalled interest on this file weeks before Carney touched down: the Saudi Press Agency reported June 16 that a Cabinet session chaired by the Crown Prince referenced Canada's Ministry of Natural Resources, and a further Cabinet session under Mohammed bin Salman took place July 7, the day before Carney's arrival, per SPA. Champagne, for his part, is working to resolve outstanding issues around double taxation and foreign-investment protection between the two countries — the kind of technical plumbing that has to be in place before Canadian mining and critical-minerals capital moves at scale.

From Rupture to Restoration

The current warmth follows a rupture that ran nearly five years. In 2018, the government of then-prime minister Justin Trudeau sharply criticized Saudi Arabia's justice system and its treatment of women. Riyadh responded by shuttering trade talks, and both countries withdrew their ambassadors. That diplomatic freeze wasn't resolved until 2023, when ambassadors were restored under the current government. Thursday's signing ceremony, and the presence of two federal cabinet ministers plus a Crown corporation CEO in the delegation, marks a considerably more active phase than the cautious normalization of the past few years.

There is also a longer thread of direct contact between Carney and the Crown Prince that predates this trip. The two spoke by phone on May 29, 2025, according to a statement from Carney's office cited by Reuters — contact that came within weeks of Carney's own ascension to the prime minister's office and suggests this week's visit was not improvised.

Gulf expert Thomas Juneau told the Globe that personal connections carry particular weight in Saudi diplomacy, a point that helps explain why Carney's own presence — rather than a minister travelling solo — was judged necessary to move this file. In a system where policy authority concentrates heavily around the Crown Prince and his inner circle, a prime ministerial visit with a signing ceremony attached carries different signal value than a trade mission led by officials.

The mining and critical-minerals angle deserves particular attention from anyone watching Ottawa's broader resource strategy. Canada has spent the past several years trying to position itself as a secure, rules-based supplier of critical minerals to allies wary of Chinese processing dominance. Saudi Arabia's parallel push to build out mining as a second economic pillar, backed by Ma'aden's balance sheet and Aramco-adjacent capital, creates an obvious complementarity: Saudi capital and processing ambition paired with Canadian deposits, permitting frameworks and technical know-how. Whether that translates into binding commitments beyond Thursday's signing ceremony — and what instruments Champagne's tax and investment-protection work ultimately produces — will be the test of whether this visit changes the trajectory of the relationship or simply formalizes the thaw already under way since 2023.

The defence dimension is worth watching too, given McGuinty's presence and Guzman's role atop the Defence Investment Agency, though neither the Globe's reporting nor the PMO release detailed specific defence-procurement outcomes from this trip. Saudi Arabia remains one of the largest defence markets in the region, and Canadian firms have had a complicated history there, including the LAV contract controversies of the past decade. Any defence-related outcomes from this visit have yet to be disclosed publicly.