5 things Canada and Finland have in common as NATO ally’s leader visits

Finland’s President Alexander Stubb is in Ottawa this week.

On Tuesday he made stops at Rideau Hall and a hockey rink before his first official meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney. On Wednesday he is holding public conversations on defence, Arctic security and industrial partnerships, including one with Industry Minister Mélanie Joly.

At the meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office, Stubb said he and Carney share values and interests and that in many ways he considers Canada an honorary member of the European Union and the Nordic nations.

Here are five things Canada and Finland have in common:

Both countries are Arctic nations. Nearly one-third of Finland’s land mass is above the Arctic Circle, while nearly 40 per cent of Canada’s land mass is in the three northern territories.

In a joint statement last year, the countries said they were committed to pursuing a “peaceful, prosperous and stable” Arctic through ventures like the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, a pact with the U.S. to produce polar icebreakers.

The statement also said Canada and Finland are committed to advancing the rights and well-being of Indigenous Peoples and northern communities.

Finland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance in 2023 in response to rising alarm about the threat posed by Russia following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Canada was the first country to ratify its request.

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NATO’s annual report, released in March, shows Carney’s government met the alliance’s key defence spending benchmark for 2025 by shelling out just over $63 billion. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Canada is spending roughly two per cent of its GDP on national defence.

The NATO report said Finland spent 2.87 per cent of its GDP on national defence in 2025, equal to more than US$9 billion.

In last year’s joint statement, Finland and Canada said they were committed to ensuring Arctic and Northern perspectives are considered in NATO activities.

The Government of Canada website says merchandise trade between Canada and Finland was valued at $2.4 billion in 2025. It says Canada exported $621.2 million and imported $1.8 billion in goods.

It says Canada’s commercial relationship with Finland revolves around science, technology and innovation partnerships and investments.

The government says Canadian mining companies also have a strong presence in northern Finland and Canadian firms are among the largest private sector employers in Lapland.

Two-way trade between Canada and Finland has increased 33.5 per cent since 2017, the website says.

The governments of Canada and Nordic countries — Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Finland — agreed last month in Oslo to continue work to defend Arctic sovereignty and to deepen economic ties against other countries’ efforts to use technology and trade as a “coercive tool.”

At that meeting, leaders discussed the need to expand trade and investment ties in response to U.S. tariffs and Washington’s threats to annex Greenland.

Hockey is the most popular sport in both Canada and Finland and the countries often play each other in high-level tournaments.

At the 2026 Winter Olympics, Canada beat Finland 3-2 in the men’s hockey semifinal — a game Stubb jokingly told Gov. Gen. Mary Simon on Tuesday he didn’t want to talk about.

In 2025, Team Canada advanced to the final of the 4 Nations Face-Off after defeating Finland.

In 2022, Finland won gold at the IIHF World Championship after defeating Canada 4-3 in overtime.

Carney and Stubb skated with the PWHL’s Ottawa Charge at their practice on Tuesday, running drills with the team and joking together about hockey.

Both Finland and Canada are considered stable middle powers on the world stage.

In Ottawa on Tuesday, Stubb said foreign policy usually involves values, interests and power. He said the two countries sometimes project power and nations like Canada and Finland are stronger when they work together.

Carney has pushed for middle powers to band together to push back against predatory great powers — a theme that dominated his headline-making speech in Davos, Switzerland in January.

In that speech to the World Economic Forum, Carney urged middle powers to work together against “American hegemony” and the efforts of great powers to coerce and subjugate smaller countries.