At Carney’s investment summit, Canadian business courts a country accused of arming genocide

Yesterday, some of the world’s most prominent investors descended upon the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto. Lured by Carney’s promises of securing $1 trillion in investments for Canada, they convened for the first-ever Canada Investment Summit, a two-day, invite-only gathering.

Co-hosted by the prime minister and two of Canada’s largest pension funds, confirmed attendees included ADNOC, the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company, and Mubadala, its sovereign wealth fund — part of a $70-billion investment pledge Carney secured in Abu Dhabi last November.

Carney’s visit to Abu Dhabi last November — the first by a sitting Prime Minister since 1983 — proved highly lucrative for Ottawa.

The visit saw a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, a $70-billion investment commitment and the announced intent to negotiate a full trade pact. Negotiations concluded in just 47 days this summer, a timeline Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu lauded as Canada’s fastest ever.

Yet, less than two weeks ago, the United Nations published a report providing fresh grounds to believe that a network of individuals and entities in the UAE had supplied weapons, logistics, training and foreign personnel to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — the paramilitary group that the US and numerous human rights groups maintain is committing genocide in Darfur.

The timing reopens a question long posed by Canadian civil society groups who lobbied against the July trade deal: Is Ottawa’s rush to find new markets undermining its ability to scrutinise the human rights records of those it’s doing business with?

The UAE’s role in Sudan

The UN’s Sept. 4 report adds to growing evidence that the UAE has backed the RSF throughout Sudan’s civil war. In January 2025, the US State Department determined that the RSF had committed genocide and sanctioned seven RSF-linked companies in the UAE. The UAE, however, has long denied any involvement.

A document by Global Affairs Canada, published in the lead-up to CEPA negotiations, reveals that the government received 107 letters that were “entirely focused on human rights concerns regarding the UAE’s role in the conflict in Sudan.” The letters were part of a campaign.

Among its opponents, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East urged Ottawa not to sign any agreement unless the UAE withdrew support for the RSF. 

“Our concerns over the grave human rights implications of trade with the UAE have only been aggravated by the rapid conclusion of CEPA,” said Michael Bueckert of CJPME. “This sends exactly the wrong message, proving that Canada is not taking these concerns seriously but has made a choice to prioritize economic deals over human rights.”

CJPME has since endorsed a campaign led by the group World Beyond War calling on Ottawa to impose an arms embargo on the UAE and suspend the trade relationship entirely.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives went further, arguing in July that Canada is “partnering with human rights abusers.” Its warnings cited the International Court of Justice’s dismissal of Sudan’s genocide case against the UAE in May 2025, purely on jurisdictional grounds because of the UAE’s reservation to a key clause of the Genocide Convention.

Neither Global Affairs Canada nor the UAE Embassy in Ottawa responded to requests for comment in time for publication. 

Speaking to Canada’s National Observer, Nicholas Coghlan, Canada’s former ambassador to Sudan, said he had seen no public indication that Canadian officials raised Sudan with the Emirati leadership during the trade negotiations.

Who’s doing business?

Many Canadian businesses hoping to benefit from Carney’s relationship with UAE investors have already made trips to the country. Companies reportedly accompanying Carney in November included Cohere, BlackBerry, OpenText, CAE, EllisDon and Air Canada.

For some, handshakes have already turned into contracts. In July, Cohere deployed sovereign AI infrastructure in the UAE, and last year OpenText signed a memorandum of understanding with Abu Dhabi AI firm G42’s subsidiary Core42 to build public-sector AI systems. Air Canada extended its codeshare partnership with Emirates to 2032.

A key player is the Canada-UAE Business Council, whose influence reportedly helped shape Carney’s visit. The Council is co-chaired by former Quebec premier Jean Charest and Musabbeh Al Kaabi, chief executive of upstream operations at ADNOC. Its board includes Brookfield, TD Securities and EllisDon.

Federal lobbying records show that ADNOC also retained Crestview Strategy in connection with a proposed acquisition by a UAE-based company and reported at least four communications with senior officials at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the Prime Minister’s Office this spring.

The records do not identify the Canadian acquisition target, although that absence is not unusual. Information collected through an Investment Canada Act review is also generally protected from disclosure. ISED declined to comment on the transaction, while ADNOC did not respond to a request for comment.

Weakened scrutiny

Canada’s public statements offer little evidence that Sudan has figured prominently in its engagement with the UAE. Canada’s statement following Carney’s November visit to Abu Dhabi made no mention of Sudan. By contrast, when UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Berlin this month, a joint declaration explicitly called for “a full arms embargo that applies across the entire territory of Sudan.”

Yonah Diamond of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights said Canada’s commercial relationship with the UAE cannot be considered separately from the allegations concerning Sudan.

“Trade cannot be disassociated from the UAE’s involvement in fuelling the RSF, particularly given the UAE’s extraction of gold, other precious resources and Red Sea access in exchange for weapons and support to the RSF,” Diamond said. “The UAE cannot be allowed to launder its complicity in the genocide in Sudan, or even be rewarded, by strengthening trade relations.”

Canada’s enforcement record complicates the picture further. Armoured vehicles manufactured by Streit Group, a Canadian-owned and UAE-manufactured arms maker, have repeatedly been documented in RSF hands during the siege of El Fasher.

Despite promises by the former foreign affairs minister that Ottawa was looking into such reports, Canada did not sanction Streit for its role in Sudan. Instead, the company was sanctioned in August for supplying vehicles to Russia.

Streit Group did not respond to a request for comment.

Diamond said Canada could impose targeted sanctions against identified RSF leaders and UAE-based entities in its support network, while supporting legal action at the International Court of Justice.

The summit’s co-hosts, CPP Investments and PSP Investments, also did not respond when asked whether the allegations concerning the RSF had informed their engagement with UAE investors.

For now, as UAE representatives walk the halls of the Four Seasons, the government has been clear about what it hopes to get out of the budding relationship. It has been less clear about whether Sudan will enter the conversation.