Pierre Poilievre’s CANZUK proposal signals a decisive shift in Canada’s foreign policy—favouring sovereign alliances with the UK, Australia, and New Zealand over Trudeau’s progressive internationalism, and reasserting Canada’s place in the Anglosphere, writes Bepi Pezzulli.
In the lead-up to Canada’s federal election on April 28, the Conservative Party has announced a pledge to pursue a CANZUK agreement—reviving a long-discussed vision of deepening ties between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
The proposal is emblematic of Pierre Poilievre’s broader foreign policy posture: realist, sovereignty-oriented, and openly aligned with the Anglo-American tradition. Unlike Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s progressive internationalism, Poilievre’s agenda seeks to reassert Canadian autonomy while drawing strength from shared heritage and mutual interests with the Anglosphere.
A key feature of Poilievre’s foreign outlook is his willingness to reabsorb the ideological chasm that emerged between Ottawa and Washington during the Trudeau mandate. Where Trudeau sought to distance Canada from Donald Trump, often on rhetorical and symbolic grounds, Poilievre signals a readiness to rebuild a pragmatic relationship with the U.S. administration based on shared interests, especially in trade and energy security. His position is not driven by nostalgia for Pax Americana but by recognition that Canada’s prosperity and security still depend heavily on the geopolitical and economic stability of the North American alliance. In that light, Poilievre’s overtures to CANZUK are not an abandonment of the U.S. relationship, but a hedging strategy to diversify Canada’s partnerships among culturally and economically compatible democracies.
The logic of CANZUK rests on practical grounds. These four nations share a common language, legal tradition, and political culture. Their economies are similarly advanced, with compatible standards of living and employment structures. Such convergence reduces the frictions typically associated with free movement or trade liberalisation. Advocates envision a union that allows citizens to live and work across borders without visas, harmonises trade regulations, and fosters collective security coordination. For Canada, this would mean access to wider labour markets, streamlined investment channels, and geopolitical leverage unachievable through multilateral institutions where authoritarian states hold veto power.
Poilievre’s foreign policy is not isolationist but selective in its engagements. He has been sharply critical of Chinese economic influence and United Nations institutions he regards as ideologically biased or ineffective. At the same time, he has expressed unequivocal support for Israel, pledged to move Canada’s embassy to Jerusalem and promised to curtail funding to international organisations perceived as hostile to Western democracies. In the same spirit, CANZUK is presented not as a retreat into nostalgia but as a forward-looking alliance rooted in trust, shared values, and strategic convergence.
In positioning himself as both a realist and a committed Atlanticist, Poilievre offers voters a coherent alternative to Trudeau’s foreign policy, which has often vacillated between symbolic progressivism and cautious multilateralism. CANZUK, while ambitious, provides a test case for how conservatism in foreign affairs might look in the twenty-first century: confident in its alliances, clear in its values, and unapologetic about the national interest.
Bepi Pezzulli is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales specialising in Governance as well as a Councillor of the Great British PAC.
Website: www.bepipezzulli.eu
Bepi tweets at @bepipezzulli
Related reading: You may remember that Conservative Post writer Stephen Bailey suggested something similar in October 2021-see link here: https://conservativepost.co.uk/stephen-bailey-canzuk-the-uk-and-her-commonwealth-should-cooperate-in-a-new-military-anglosphere/
What might have made sense 20 years ago doesn’t now. Canada is irredeemably Woke – LGBTQ plus plus plus; Abortion, yes please; “Climate” fanaticism; rabidly anti-Trump. And burning Catholic churches – at least 85 churches damaged by fire or vandalism since 2021. In Canada, Catholics are despicable “Christo-Nationalists”. Unbelievably, once “macho” Australia is as bad. Tickle v Giggle ! New Zealand ? A joke, right ? We should be coalescing with various existing and potential leaders in Europe (NOT the EU !)
The reality of CANZUK is that free movement of people means the immigration standards of the weakest country get passed on to the rest. Its advocates picture freedom of movement as extended working holiday visas, so more Aussies can go work at Whistler for longer, Brits can burn their skin in the Aussie sun, and Canadian junior lawyers can cop a swing with a London firm. But this is a tiny portion of migration and one where few barriers exist already. The real issue is double migration – Australia already has enough Indians without taking Canada’s leftovers, and no one wants the horrific mix of Middle Eastern and African boat arrivals and Eastern Europeans that pre-Brexit Britain imported wholesale. On the trade front, the British Dominions worked out that Imperial Preference doesn’t work in the 1930s.
Having taken one step away from the wholesale liberal madness – the Supreme Court’s ruling that a woman is a biological female (!!!) – now is absolutely not the time to get any closer to a Canada where Carney’s Liberals will be perpetuating everything in my message above.
Australia’s election has taken the country further to the left. Giggle will now have no chance against Tickle, with all the ramifications flowing from that absurdity. The idea, appearing in Conservative Post of all places, of our cosying up to leftist Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is insultingly stupid.
So why should Israel get mention here? What have they got to do with CANZUK one way or the other?
External integration as we know it into the proposed members stage would have to cease to accommodate free movement between member states