Government Files is The Canada Report's public-records analysis series examining government documents obtained through Canada's Access to Information (ATI) and provincial Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. These transparency laws allow members of the public to request internal government records from federal and provincial institutions. This article reviews documents released through those processes and summarizes what the records contain and what they show. While we strive for accuracy, this article represents an analysis and interpretation of the source material. For complete accuracy and full context, readers should review the original documents, which are available in full below.
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The Privy Council Office prepared a 52-page binder of briefing notes for Prime Minister Mark Carney's first phone calls with world leaders after the April 2025 federal election — and the script for the call with U.S. President Donald Trump is the only one released in any substantive form. Among the scripted lines: a flat declaration that "Canada is not the source of fentanyl in the U.S.," a commitment to "almost triple" defence spending to $58 billion by 2029-30, and a request to "easily demonstrate a win-win and announce the lifting of tariffs."
The records, obtained through Access to Information request A-2025-00084 released by the Privy Council Office in October 2025, contain briefing material prepared for Carney's post-election calls with seven leaders: European Council President António Costa, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Six of those seven briefing packages have their suggested talking points blacked out almost entirely under section 21(1)(a) of the Access to Information Act, which protects advice and recommendations. The Trump briefing is the exception.
What the Documents Show
The Trump briefing — the most fully disclosed package in the release — runs eight pages and reads as a near-complete script. Its two stated objectives are to continue building "a constructive relationship" with the U.S. President and to reaffirm Canada's intent to enter into negotiations toward a comprehensive economic and security agreement. Under "Bilateral Relationship," the document gives Carney the opening line "It has been a short, but eventful journey for me," followed by a scripted account of his March selection as Liberal leader, his snap election campaign, and the line "Thrilled Canadians chose to trust me."
The substantive scripting begins under "Negotiations towards a comprehensive agreement." The document instructs Carney to reference the pair's previous March 28 call, name Dominic LeBlanc and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as the designated lead interlocutors, and ask Trump: "What are your main objectives for this agreement?" The package then lists "Responsive" lines — pre-prepared replies for specific topics Trump was expected to raise. The G7 responsive script tells Carney to describe Canada's presidency as "one of my top priorities" and to frame Summit outcomes as being "about unity" — with consensus targets covering critical mineral supply chains, AI for prosperity, quantum technologies, wildfires, transnational repression, and private capital mobilization for infrastructure.
On the border and fentanyl — the official U.S. justification for the IEEPA tariffs imposed on Canada in February 2025 — the prepared lines are notably firm. Carney was scripted to tell Trump that "Canada is not the source of fentanyl in the U.S.," that Canada has acted aggressively to shut down even trace amounts crossing the border, and that precursor chemicals are coming from China and other countries. On defence, he was instructed to position Canada as "already well positioned" — NATO's seventh-largest spender, on track to nearly triple spending from $20 billion in 2014-15 to $58 billion by 2029-30.
The background section attached to the Trump briefing contains a data point the talking points themselves do not surface: of all firearms seized at the Canada-U.S. border by the Canada Border Services Agency, approximately 90 per cent came from the United States, and illegal firearms crossings from the U.S. into Canada rose at least 44 per cent between 2022 and 2024, from 581 seizures to 839. Over the same period, prohibited weapons coming from the U.S. rose 28 per cent. The same section notes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized only 42 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border between October 2023 and September 2024, compared to 21,900 pounds at the southern border. In the first three months of 2025, fewer than two pounds of fentanyl were seized at the Canada-U.S. border by U.S. officials.
The briefing also notes that when U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard presented the U.S. Annual Threat Assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 25, 2025, the assessment "made no mention of Canada at all" — even as the same administration cited a Canadian fentanyl threat as the legal basis for the February tariffs. The document records that when Gabbard was pressed on the omission, she could not share specific information about any Canadian fentanyl-trafficking threat.
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The Six Calls With Talking Points Almost Entirely Withheld
The contrast between the Trump briefing and the other six call packages is the second story in the release. Each of the other binders follows an identical structure — a one-page "Objectives and Suggested Talking Points" cover, a multi-page background section, and a one-page biography of the leader being called — but in every other case the talking points and most of the objectives have been redacted under section 21(1)(a). The Macron briefing's three objectives are fully blacked out. So are the Costa briefing's talking points, the Ishiba briefing's objectives and full talking-points section, the Zelenskyy briefing's objectives and talking points, and the Luxon briefing's objectives and talking points. Only the Guterres (United Nations Secretary-General) briefing has its talking points partially visible — discussing Haiti, the G7 presidency, Ukraine, and climate change.
The Macron briefing is unique in another way: it is the only package written entirely in French. Its background section ("CONTEXTE") describes the March 31, 2025 French court conviction of Marine Le Pen, Trump's response calling Le Pen's conviction "a witch hunt," and French PM François Bayrou's characterization of Trump's remarks as "une ingérence" — interference. The package also references Carney's March 17 visit to France, his second day as Prime Minister, which it credits with announcing "a new bilateral partnership in the area of intelligence and security." That trip — examined in earlier Government Files reporting on Privy Council Office records — was followed up by his National Security and Intelligence Advisor, Nathalie Drouin, who travelled to Paris from April 9 to 11 to advance cyber-security and intelligence-sharing cooperation.
The Ishiba briefing notes that when Carney spoke with the Japanese Prime Minister, it would be his first such call — and that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last met Ishiba at the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18, 2024. The background section flags that "Japan is worried about the repercussions of U.S. tariffs on Japanese businesses in Canada and is actively engaged across all levels of the Government of Canada," and notes that the Japan-U.S. Host Nation Support Agreement is scheduled for renegotiation in March 2026.
Canada's Ukraine Commitments, Quantified
The Zelenskyy briefing is the most fully redacted package in the release — its first two pages of substantive content are blacked out entirely — but the background section provides the clearest figures in the document on Canada's Ukraine support. Since Russia's February 2022 invasion, Canada has committed "almost $20 billion in multifaceted support" to Ukraine. Military assistance alone totals more than $4.5 billion, including more than 850 drones, 13 additional armoured combat support vehicles transferred via Germany for training, and 80,000 CRV7 rocket motors moved through Poland for logistics transfer to Ukraine.
Of the $5 billion Canada committed under the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) loan mechanism — backed by earnings from frozen Russian sovereign assets — the first tranche of $2.5 billion was disbursed on March 11, 2025. A second tranche of $2.3 billion and a final $200 million are scheduled for disbursement in 2025/26, with the final $200 million contingent on Parliament approving main estimates. The European Union, by comparison, has disbursed its full €18.115 billion ERA commitment, and the United States has fully disbursed its US$20 billion. The UK has disbursed two £752 million tranches of its £2.26 billion commitment.
What's Missing from the Records
The release is 52 pages in length, but a significant share of that page count consists of withheld-page notices rather than content. Pages 2 to 4 of the Costa (European Council) briefing are withheld. Pages 12 and 13 of the Macron briefing are withheld. Pages 22 and 23 of the Ishiba briefing are withheld. Pages 38 and 39 of the Zelenskyy briefing are withheld. Page 58 of the Luxon briefing is withheld. The withholding citations are section 21(1)(a) — advice and recommendations developed for a government institution — and in some cases section 15(1), which protects information that could be injurious to international affairs.
The records do not include any indication of whether the calls actually took place, when they took place, what was discussed in fact, or how long they lasted. They also do not include readouts, follow-up correspondence, or any record of what was said in response to the scripted lines. The released package is the input to the calls, not the output.
The contrast in disclosure is most striking around Ukraine and the broader Coalition of the Willing — a Europe-led security framework supporting Ukraine that the briefing notes flag as a "top line priority" for the Coalition's training mission. The Zelenskyy briefing's talking points are fully redacted under section 21(1)(a), even though publicly available reporting at the time of the call addressed many of the same issues. The Coalition's broader work — referenced briefly in the unredacted background but discussed in heavily redacted sections — would be of substantial public interest given Canada's leadership role in training Ukrainian forces.
The Trump Briefing's Scripted Questions
One feature of the Trump briefing that does not appear in any other package is a series of explicit "Q" prompts — questions Carney was scripted to ask Trump. Two are visible in the release. Under the comprehensive agreement section, Carney was prompted to ask Trump: "What are your main objectives for this agreement?" Under the Ukraine section — flagged as "Responsive," meaning to be used only if Trump raised it — Carney was prompted to ask: "What do you see as the next steps?"
The structure suggests an effort to position Carney as both deferential to Trump's stated priorities (the "your main objectives" framing) and as genuinely soliciting information rather than offering positions. The Ukraine section's "Responsive" framing is itself notable: it indicates that Ukraine was not on the Canadian list of topics to raise proactively, but was prepared for in case Trump raised it. The same is true for the border, fentanyl, and defence spending sections — all marked "Responsive" rather than as topics Carney was scripted to initiate.
Canada's G7 Priorities, Restated Seven Times
The same three-priority framing of Canada's G7 Presidency — Security, Prosperity, and Partnerships — appears in nearly identical language in the background section of every single briefing package in the release. Security is defined as "fostering peace and security in Ukraine, countering foreign interference and transnational repression, addressing migrant smuggling and illegal synthetic drugs trafficking, and fighting wildfires." Prosperity is "promoting prosperity by driving energy security and the digital transition, including resilient critical mineral supply chains, AI access and adoption and accelerating the development of quantum technologies." Partnerships covers "helping mobilize the private sector to support priorities like infrastructure development in developing countries."
The repetition across seven separate briefing packages — Costa, Macron, Ishiba, Trump, Zelenskyy, Guterres, and Luxon — confirms that the G7 priorities were already locked in at the time of the post-election calls in late April and early May 2025, weeks before the June 15-17 Kananaskis Summit. The records also confirm that, with the exception of Ukraine's President Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, no decisions had been made on which countries would be invited as outreach guests to the Summit at the time the briefings were prepared.
Broader Context
The Trump call referenced in the briefing — Carney's first call with the U.S. President after winning the April 28 federal election — took place against the backdrop of the U.S. tariff regime imposed on Canada earlier that year. The same regime was the subject of ongoing reporting on its labour-market impact on Ontario manufacturing. The briefing's background section lists each Trump executive action and proclamation in sequence: the February 1 IEEPA order applying 25 per cent tariffs on most Canadian imports; the March 6 CUSMA exemption; the February 10 Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs (effective March 12); the March 26 Section 232 proclamation on cars and light trucks (effective April 3); and the April 2 announcement of country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs (paused April 9 for 90 days for all countries except China).
The Zelenskyy briefing's background also flags that on March 18, 2025, the Ontario Superior Court issued a notice of application for forfeiture of the Russian-registered cargo Antonov 124 aircraft seized in Canada — which the document describes as "Canada's first ever forfeiture of a seized asset, if successful." Canada's broader work in this area, including its role in coordinating with European leaders on Ukraine peace negotiations, was the subject of multiple meetings in Paris and London in March and April 2025 at the leaders, NSA, and military levels.
The release also confirms — in language repeated across multiple briefings — that Canada "is an active partner in shaping the solution with European Allies" through the Coalition of the Willing, with training of Ukrainian forces as its "top line priority." Other lines of effort listed include "economic and military assistance, and contributions a ceasefire monitoring framework or peacekeeping mission" — phrasing that confirms peacekeeping was under active discussion in PCO planning at the time of the post-election calls.
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Support Government FilesAll briefing notes, background materials, and biographies referenced are from the Privy Council Office, A-2025-00084, obtained through an Access to Information request. The records contain briefing material prepared for Prime Minister Mark Carney's post-election telephone calls with seven world leaders in late April and early May 2025: António Costa, Emmanuel Macron, Shigeru Ishiba, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, António Guterres, and Christopher Luxon.
