Canada and the Philippines are in the final stages of negotiating an agreement that will allow both countries to deploy troops on each other’s soil, according to Canada’s ambassador to Manila on Sunday.
Manila already has similar agreements with the United States and Japan and is also in talks with France and New Zealand as China continues to assert its claims in the South China Sea.
“We are in the final stages of negotiating the agreement, which will enable us to have deeper cooperation and more substantive participation in training to build capacity,” said David Hartman, Canada’s ambassador to Manila, in a statement to AFP.
“We hope that the agreement will be signed and ratified by both governments before the end of 2025,” he added.
Discussions between Canadian officials and their Philippine counterparts from the defence and foreign departments took place last month, Hartman said.
The agreement is expected to enable Canadian troops to participate in the large-scale joint military exercises held annually between the Philippines and the United States.
The Philippine foreign office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.
In recent months, the Canadian navy has taken part in several patrols in the South China Sea with the US, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan to assert freedom of navigation and airspace in a key waterway claimed almost entirely by Beijing.
