Canada is quietly strengthening its presence in the Pacific. In a region where relationships are more important than military or economic strength, Canada possesses the latitude to pursue a middle-power strategy distinct from Australia’s.
Australia and Canada may well be ideal Indo-Pacific partners, underscored by Mark Carney’s visit to Australia from 3 to 6 March. But Canada will also have to find its own way, particularly at a time when Australia’s Pacific-family rhetoric has been criticised, and the United States appears to be an unpredictable partner willing to make Canada its 51st state.
Amid intensifying attention on the Pacific, one development passed largely unnoticed: after establishing diplomatic relations with Cook Islands and Niue in 2023, Canada in January opened its first Pacific high commission in Fiji, co-located at the British High Commission. That move should be understood less as a strategic turning point than as a symptom of broader geopolitical recalibrations in the Pacific. However, and while modest in scale, the opening of a high commission formalises Canada’s commitment to deeper engagement in the region.
It positions Fiji, a reputed regional hub and influential Pacific nation, as Canada’s gateway to the Pacific. In its Indo-Pacific strategy, Canada defines itself as a Pacific nation, a claim that entails both spatial projection and political performance. Those ties are not new; Canadians share historical, cultural and long-standing trade and development ties with the people of the region.
Since 2000, Canada has provided more than A$500 million in development assistance to Pacific island countries, mostly through regional initiatives rather than country-specific ones. Recent commitments include $40 million over five years for regional development priorities. As highlighted in the Boe Declaration, climate change is an existential threat for the Pacific islands. Initiatives linked to climate security are therefore particularly appreciated. In November 2023 during the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Rarotonga, Canada increased its contribution to the Kiwa Initiative from $10 million to $16 million. The initiative aims to improve Pacific climate resilience by ‘protecting, sustainably managing and restoring biodiversity’. Military personnel from Canada also embarked on USS John L Canley for the Pacific Partnership 2025, a five-month multinational civic assistance and disaster management preparedness mission. Canada might be discreet, but it is not absent.
All of the above contribute positively to Canada’s aim of being seen as an active, engaged and reliable partner in the region. However, in its Indo-Pacific strategy, only a few Pacific island countries (notably Fiji and Samoa) are mentioned, despite accounting for almost half of the countries in the region (Canada counts 40, 14 of which are Pacific islands, excluding Australia and New Zealand). It may need to keep in mind what Dame Meg Taylor feared in 2018: the risk of ‘privileging the “Indo” over the “Pacific”’. The Blue Pacific narrative and its associated 2050 strategy hoped to recalibrate the balance.
Canada’s membership of the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) initiative won’t mitigate this risk, nor will co-chairing a maritime domain awareness working group alongside the US, aimed at coordinating and implementing the capacity support offered to Pacific island countries. There are indeed indications that external partners have mobilised the Blue Pacific narrative to serve their own interests, framing their actions in ways that may weaken or bypass established Pacific regional decision-making processes. The PBP initiative provides the clearest illustration of this dynamic: it was met with some scepticism, as it was ‘announced solely by the partners’, creating ‘the impression that it had circumvented regionalism despite the rhetoric claiming to respect Forum-centrality’.
Synergies can be found between the Indo-Pacific and Blue Pacific agendas, especially on maritime security and climate change. Canada might want to keep a low profile on critical minerals, as it’s a controversial topic in the Pacific. It should be willing to increase its involvement in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing through the Forum Fisheries Agency (while considering here that Canada’s military is in a death spiral, and most of its major fleets are unavailable or unserviceable, limiting its capacity to assist materially).
Pacific island countries are eager to engage in diversification and secure reliable partnerships in line with the regional ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ mantra. Canada has an opportunity to play its cards right on people-to-people connections and engage in a relational approach that does not see the region through in terms of great-power rivalry.
