Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will take part in a signing ceremony in Calgary on Thursday morning, according to a media advisory published by the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday evening.
The advisory sets out three consecutive engagements in Calgary, with all times local. The two leaders will meet at 9 a.m., with what the advisory describes as a pooled photo opportunity at the beginning of the meeting. At 10:30 a.m. they will participate in a signing ceremony, listed as open coverage for accredited media. At 10:50 a.m. they will hold a joint media availability, also open to accredited media. The advisory does not say what the two leaders will sign. Carney is then scheduled to convene and attend the Cabinet Planning Forum in Banff, Alta., at 1:50 p.m.
In a separate statement issued the same day, Carney said Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, are visiting Canada from Sept. 9 to 11, and that the couple will attend events in Calgary, Toronto and North Bay, Ont. Zelenskyy will also address cabinet members at the Cabinet Planning Forum in Banff, the statement said. It did not describe what the Toronto or North Bay events will involve.
“The visit underscores Canada’s continued leadership in supporting Ukraine and reflects our unwavering commitment to a just and lasting peace,” Carney said in the statement. He said the programme will focus on shared priorities including deepening defence, economic and energy cooperation, and will also address the human cost of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. “Canada remains steadfast in our commitment to support Ukraine’s defence, recovery, and reconstruction,” the statement said.
The itinerary was released hours after Zelenskyy confirmed the trip himself and while its details were still unannounced. The Canadian Press reported Wednesday that Zelenskyy said in a post on X that he was on his way to Canada, sharing video of his arrival in Iceland for a meeting with the Icelandic foreign minister, where he said he had stopped “on my way to Canada.” He had been in Oslo earlier that day for the funeral of Norway’s King Harald V. At the time of that report, The Canadian Press said neither Ukraine nor Carney’s office had publicly announced where Zelenskyy would be travelling in Canada, or the purpose of the visit.
It is Zelenskyy’s first visit to Canada this year. He was last in the country in Halifax in December, The Canadian Press reported, and Carney travelled to Kyiv in August 2025. Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, visited Ukraine each year following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Canada has pledged $6.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since that invasion, funding that runs through to 2029, according to The Canadian Press. It reported that Ottawa has made no new funding announcements since May, when Canada joined an agreement to learn from Ukrainian drone producers. The Kiel Institute, which tracks global contributions to Ukraine, ranks Canada fourth among donors in raw dollars and 12th when measured against gross domestic product, counting military aid, government financing and humanitarian support.
The visit comes as Kyiv has absorbed repeated Russian airstrikes in recent months and as Ukraine has pressed allies for additional air defence support, The Canadian Press reported. It also comes as European governments accuse Russia of widening the war through sabotage. Germany last week blamed Russia for what it called an attempted explosive drone attack near a Ukrainian cargo plane at the Leipzig airport, which Carney described as “an egregious attempt by Russia to weaken our resolve and our collective defence.”
Later this month, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is to co-host a summit in Toronto focused on the return of Ukrainian children and prisoners of war, according to The Canadian Press. The Prime Minister’s Office statement did not connect that summit to Zelenskyy’s Toronto stop.
