A New Era of Canada-Vietnam Partnership

What It Means for Our Communities and Our Future

By Canada-Vietnam Friendship Society
September 24, 2026

On September 24, Ottawa welcomes President and General Secretary Tô Lâm, marking the highest-level visit by a Vietnamese leader to Canada to date. It is a moment more than fifty years in the making – and one whose significance reaches far beyond the ceremony of a state visit. For the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Canadians who call this country home, and for the workers and businesses on both sides of the Pacific who stand to benefit, this visit marks not an endpoint but a beginning: the foundation for a relationship built to last generations.

Canadian government officials welcome General Secretary and President To Lam at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. Photos: VNA

Canada-Vietnam relations

Vietnam and Canada established diplomatic relations in 1973, at a moment when neither country could have imagined the shape their partnership would eventually take. Since then, that relationship has grown steadily – through through trade, education, and the contributions of a vibrant Vietnamese Canadian community. Today, Vietnam is one of Canada’s most dynamic economic partners in Southeast Asia, while Canada is home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside Vietnam.

Across Canada, Vietnamese Canadian families have built businesses, pursued careers, and contributed to their communities while maintaining strong ties to their heritage. That living bridge between two nations is, in many ways, the truest measure of a healthy bilateral relationship. It is the reason why a formal upgrade in diplomatic ties is not merely a matter for diplomats and ministers, but something that touches real families and real futures.

Representatives of the Vietnamese community in Canada welcome General Secretary and President To Lam. Photos: VNA

The visit is expected to formalize a new chapter: an upgrade toward a comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries. This is not symbolic language. It reflects a shared recognition that Vietnam and Canada now have genuine, complementary interests – in trade diversification, in clean energy and science and technology cooperation, in supply chain resilience, and in building people-to-people ties that will define the next fifty years the way earlier generations defined the last.

Vietnam: A strategic CPTPP partner and gateway to ASEAN markets

For Canadian businesses, Vietnam offers a market of over 100 million people, a young and increasingly skilled workforce, and a strategic gateway into ASEAN – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – fast-growing economies. For Vietnamese businesses and investors, Canada offers access to North American markets, a stable rule-of-law environment, and world-class research and innovation institutions. The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) already links our two economies; a deeper strategic partnership can build on that foundation with more ambitious cooperation in areas like clean technology, critical minerals, agri-food, and digital innovation – sectors where both countries have real strengths to offer each other. A future Canada-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement could strengthen these ties further.

Just as importantly, this is a moment to invest in the human infrastructure of the relationship: expanded educational exchange, closer collaboration between Canadian and Vietnamese universities and research institutions, and more opportunities for young entrepreneurs on both sides to work together. Economic partnerships that last are built by people who know and trust each other – not simply by agreements signed in ceremonial rooms.

Deeper ties also include practical institutional cooperation on shared challenges, from public safety and transnational crime to emerging technology governance. This quieter work builds the trust needed to strengthen trade, investment, and people-to-people connections.

Our communities, our future

As Canada and Vietnam prepare to mark this new chapter, it is worth remembering that the relationship between our two countries was never only about governments. It has also been about the Vietnamese Canadian community members who have made extraordinary contributions to Canadian society, and about the possibility – now closer than ever – of two nations on opposite sides of the Pacific building something durable together. This visit is an opportunity, not a conclusion. What follows – from business engagement and institutional cooperation to investment in the next generation – will determine whether this moment becomes a true turning point or simply another diplomatic milestone. Given the strong foundation already built, there is every reason to believe it will be the former.