BANFF – People on either side of the border were taken aback when Prime Minister Mark Carney said this week he considered the possibility of U.S.-led military actions against Canada as an “extreme tail risk.”
For Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the notion that Canadians need to worry about a military invasion is not merely unlikely, it’s unfathomable.
Dunleavy spoke at the Global Business Forum on Friday, where an earlier session touched on why Canada would even need to consider such a prospect.
“I have to say I don’t use superlatives very often, but that was one of the most fascinating and shocking conversations I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Dunleavy told the crowd.
“The idea that America would attack Canada is shocking to the average American on the ground. You have to understand that — shocking.”
The two-term Republican governor noted that one of the last serious U.S. invasion attempts occurred in 1775, when Benedict Arnold led American forces into Quebec.
In today’s political environment, however, the governor’s comments come as the two countries are mired in a trade war, despite having an existing free trade deal. And shortly before his 2025 inauguration, Trump suggested to reporters that he might use economic force to annex Canada, but not military force.
“From my perspective, and I’m not in the (White House) Situation Room, but I know a lot of people in Washington, and I know a lot of people across the country,” said Dunleavy.
The Hon. Mike Dunleavy, Governor of Alaska, spoke with the Hon. Gary Mar, President and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, at the Global Business Forum on Friday, September 25, 2026 in Banff, west of Calgary.
“Pennsylvania has a better chance of being invaded by West Virginia. I just want to make sure you guys understand that. Zero chance. But that was a fascinating conversation because it opened my eyes.”
In an interview this week with The New York Times, Carney was asked about Trump’s previous comments about making Canada the 51st U.S. state, and replied that he has a responsibility to “look at extreme tail risk.”
“That’s just risk management. That’s not a base case,” the prime minister told the news organization.
Carney’s comments came up at the Global Business Forum on Friday morning during a session with Jody Thomas, former national security and intelligence adviser to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, and a one-time deputy minister of national defence.
Asked about the prime minister’s remarks, Thomas told the audience that governments plan for every possible scenario, so it can better understand what it might mean and how they would respond.
But Thomas emphasized she doesn’t think there was any active planning of a land invasion into Canada.
Jody Thomas, Senior Advisor at Counsel Public Affairs and former National Security and Intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister, spoke with Scotty Greenwood, founding partner at Ottawa Street Strategy, had a discussion on national security at the Global Business Forum.
“It is reasonable that the government would look at what the threats that were being espoused by the United States would look like for us,” said Thomas.
“I’ve been asked this in other venues, ‘Would this happen?’ And I do not believe it ever would.”
The notion seems far-fetched for many, given the long-standing co-operation between the two countries, including in key areas such as border security, defence partnerships and energy integration.
Dunleavy noted Canada is his state’s only land neighbour, and emphasized the strong co-operation between Alaska and Yukon.
“The average American does not see what you guys just talked about . . . We see you as our brothers, as siblings of the same mother,” he said.
“The conversations about invasion, the conversations about any harm at all ever coming to Canada from America, it’s so far off the radar screen that this was shocking.”
Earlier this week, a survey by polling firm Public First for the news organization Politico indicated 77 per cent of Americans believe it’s important for the United States to have good relations with Canada. An identical number of Canadians felt the same way about the bilateral relationship.
Yet, it also found 60 per cent of Canadians surveyed think the latest round of American tariffs adopted by the U.S. administration in August were introduced “out of spite to harm the Canadian economy,” compared with 30 per cent who think they were designed to benefit the U.S. economy.
Aside from the issue of military action, there are Canadian concerns about economic subordination the governor didn’t address, said former U.S. diplomat Scotty Greenwood, founding partner with Ottawa Street Strategy, a government relations and geopolitical risk advisory firm based in Washington, D.C.
“I see people talking past each other,” said Greenwood, former CEO of the Canadian American Business Council.
“It’s good that the governor had the reaction he did, though, because I think it’s good for Canadians to hear that the kind of rhetoric coming out of the White House isn’t supported even by the president’s most faithful allies.”
In an interview, Dunleavy stressed the relationship between Canada and the U.S. is “long-standing and so solid” and that most Americans view it that way.
“There’s rhetoric at the top, but underneath that, I would urge Canadians — average Canadians — to understand that (for) the average American, their view of Canadians have never changed,” he said.
“We appreciate our Canadian neighbours. We like our Canadian neighbours. I can’t think of a country and people that we’re closer to than Canadians, and that’s not going to change.”
Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.