.SusanDelacourt: How Canada helped lead Sweden and Finland into NATO via torontostar
Three summers ago, Finnish Foreign Affairs Minister Pekka Haavisto was in Toronto for a conference on reform in Ukraine that was attended by leading figures from nations around the globe. Haavisto liked Toronto; he enjoyed the chance to hear from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the conference and get to know Justin Trudeau’s government a little better.
Everything changed on Feb. 24, though, when Russia invaded Ukraine. For some politicians, that has become a standard line in their foreign affairs speeches. For Haavisto, it’s more than a line. It is deeply, professionally and personally true.generation. We are in a war again,’” he said. “It’s that feeling that you are waking up in a totally different world.”
Here in Canada, that didn’t come as a surprise. Quietly, more than a month earlier, Joly had dropped into Helsinki and had dinner with Haavisto and his officials to talk about this profound shift in attitude toward NATO. It was at that dinner that things got rolling for Joly and Canada to help get Finland and Sweden fast-tracked for NATO membership.
Joly believes the significance of this NATO expansion can’t be overlooked. For these “very progressive countries,” she says, it’s “one of the biggest changes in their foreign policy in 50 to 100 years.”
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