UAE’s ties to Israel, hostility to Iran and its large wealth funds explain Mark Carney’s obsession with the federation of seven monarchies situated at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula.
Last week Prime Minister Carney talked with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ). On X, Canadian researcher Anthony Fenton quipped, “Carney placed his bi-weekly call to MbZ on Friday.” In June Carney also met MbZ at the G7 and traveled to Abu Dhabi last November.
Foreign affairs minister Anita Anand is currently in the UAE. According to Fenton, who is writing a Ph.D. on Canada-Gulf ties, this is “her fifth trip to the region in 2026 which would (by my count) make it the most visits ever by a Canadian cabinet minister to the Gulf in a single year.” Three weeks ago, Anand met UAE’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs at the United Nations. Artificial Intelligence minister Evan Solomon and International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu have also travelled to Dubai while four Liberal ministers met UAE’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, during a visit to Canada in June.
As part of this remarkable diplomatic push, Carney recently selected a close advisor as ambassador to the emirates. A top advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office, Angad Singh Dhillon assumed his new role on October 5. Appointing a close advisor ambassador highlights the importance Carney is devoting to his relationship to a federation with 1.3 million citizens living among 11 million total population.
One manifestation of the importance granted the UAE is a slew of statements defending it from Iranian strikes. While ignoring/supporting US/Israeli/UAE aggression on Iran, Ottawa has put out a dozen releases defending the UAE from Iranian bombs. After meeting her emirate counterpart at the UN on September 21, Anand “reiterated Canada’s solidarity with the UAE and other Gulf partners in the face of ongoing attacks by Iran and its proxy groups in the region. She condemned recent Iranian strikes against the UAE and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company vessels.”
But, until recently, the UAE hosted 5,000 US military personnel and has repeatedly struck Iran. “The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, people familiar with the matter said, casting the Gulf monarchy as an active combatant in a war in which it has been Iran’s biggest target”, reported the Wall Street Journal two months into the US/Israeli instigated war. According to the Financial Times and others, Israel sent dozens of soldiers and air defence equipment, including the Iron Dome, Iron Beam laser system and Spectro surveillance, to assist the UAE.
Trained at the British military college in Sandhurst, MbZ has turned UAE into a Zionist outpost. Since instigating the Abraham Accords in 2020 the UAE has established diplomatic relations, appointed an ambassador and signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Israel. Three weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to Abu Dhabi to meet MbZ.
Beyond its support for Zionism and empire, Canada’s deepening ties to the UAE have an economic motivation. In July Ottawa signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the Emirates. The Carney government boasted about concluding the CEPA in just 47 days. As part of these efforts, there’s a bilateral trade deal in the works and the UAE has said it would invest as much as $70 billion into Canadian projects. Representatives of the emirates were part of last month’s CEO summit in Toronto.
Over 200 Canadian corporate entities operate in UAE. Formerly chaired by Carney, Brookfield Asset Management maintains a multi-billion-dollar investment portfolio there (according to the Globe and Mail, “Brookfield is one of the largest foreign investors in the Middle East, managing a US$16-billion portfolio”). Montreal-based CAE has large civilian and military training operations in Dubai while De Havilland Canada, Bombardier and other Canadian aviation companies have done civilian and military business there.
Canada has exported hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to the UAE in recent years. Additionally, Canadian diplomats and the military have promoted firms selling their wares at the Abu Dhabi based International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX), the largest arms fair in the Middle East and North Africa. The Trade Commissioner Service is organizing the Canada Pavilion at January’s IDEX 2027.
Long based in southern Ontario, Streit Group recently moved its main operations to the UAE. Streit Group has provided armoured vehicles to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, which is responsible for horrific violence (the Sudanese Armed Forces recently captured a Streit vehicle). The RSF has been armed and backed by Abu Dhabi since they fought Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen and in August the Financial Times detailed UAE’s role in bringing hundreds of Colombian fighters to Sudan. Alongside covert military, financial and logistical support to the paramilitary RSF, Abu Dhabi has pursued an adventurist policy elsewhere on the continent prompting the recent Financial Times headline: “The UAE’s imperial push into Africa.”
Despite its arming of the RSF, intervention in Libya and domestic repression, Carney has turbocharged ties with the UAE. Do most Canadians support deepening ties to the federation of monarchies?
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