Canada strengthening Nordic ties | Threats facing Arctic region

Joining us now to break it all down is Scott Reid, CTV News political commentator. Good morning, Scott. Good to see you. >> Good morning. >> So, key takeaways from Carney's comments at that press conference. I mean in particular listening to the last part of that press conference I think something that might be surprising to some people is how clearly under threat the Nordic nations feel whether it's Canada or whether it's you know countries like Finland, Iceland, Norway and and by that I mean whether it's Russia or whether it's China or left unsaid whether it is in fact the United States there's a clear sense that the opening up of the north of the Arctic creates opportunities for Russia and for China and these others um to come in to occupy whether it's for military purposes are more likely economic purposes uh to take up critical minerals and there is a real collective sense that if we do not make this a priority of NATO uh there are risks that individually we will not be able to uh to face those threats fully. >> It was quite the show of force seeing Carney on that stage with his Nordic counterparts. Talk to me about the optics of this statement and this press conference. Uh what are they trying to show here with this show of force? Well, I guess we're Canadians, so forgive me if I look at it through our lens, but I couldn't help be struck by the fact that explicitly and implicitly, you see Mark Carney really taking the reigns here. So, six world leaders on the stage, Nordic nations, uh they're there explicitly as part of a stronger together initiative, something that the prime minister has been talking about most explicitly in his Davos speech where if the rest of the world and the big powers of the world are going to be hostile and unreliable or on the case of the United States, unpredictable, we're going to have to band together in order to be stronger. Sometimes that means NATO. Often that means smaller groups of alliances like the Nordic countries with Canada. And so explicitly you see Mark Carney taking a leadership role, but also implicitly in the way that you saw the leaders deferring and repeating and saying, "Well, as Mark Carney just said, I mean, I really do think that from the Canadian perspective, uh the job of how do we respond to a hostile Russia, a hostile China, to an unpredictable America, it in many ways has fallen uh to Mark Carney and you see other world leaders uh rallying around uh points of view that he's expressed the strategies that he's espoused. >> Scott, there was a lot of talk here about defense and security. You mentioned China and Ukraine, uh, but there really was not much discussion about the situation in Iran, which is really overwhelming the world's headlines right now. Is this group trying to distance themselves from speaking about the war in the Middle East? >> I don't know if they're trying to distance themselves, but they want to make certain they bring priority in their own backyard with uh with with the Arctic. I think also it's probably a delicate subject for every single one of those leaders as we've seen here in Canada where Carney has gotten some criticism. Uh you know sometimes it sounds like he's too hard, sometimes too soft. It's very difficult territory. Why? Well, there aren't a lot of people in the public and the Nordic countries I think are very little different from Canada. Not a lot of public support for the American uh incursion into Iran. Not because anybody's enthusiastic about Iran and its leadership, but because people do not do not draw any comfort from under the motives or the competence of the American effort led by Donald Trump. So, I I'm not surprised they skirted the issue. I think you're right. They were deliberately skirting the issue uh because they see almost nothing but peril. They don't want to alienate Donald Trump uh but they don't want to signal to their domestic audiences any great enthusiasm either. What does this partnership mean in practice moving forward? >> Well, I do think in some ways the most important part is maybe the me most esoteric and that is a reaffirmation of collective security which seems to be kind of a pass a term these days uh in a world where you see the United States flexing its muscles talking about whether we even bother to need NATO. um having these world leaders come together say no collective security matters whether it's a band of group a band of countries like this on a on an improv basis or whether it is in fact through uh NATO and just reinforcing always that if NATO uh can make a priority of the Arctic then that makes it harder for at least the likes of the United States to abandon that priority or to play its own cards and go independently and start treating it like it's a slot machine to be milked and similarly that hopefully is a deterrent to the likes of Russia. And you heard them over and over and over again talking about how Russia is the most explicit threat in the north. And implicit to that is worries that America will not be aggressive with Russia because it hasn't been even in this war in Iran. >> All right, CTV News political commentator Scott Reid, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.