President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was expected to address Canada’s Parliament on Friday during his first visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion, as he continues his push to shore up support from crucial allies.
Mr. Zelensky landed in Ottawa, the capital, late on Thursday. After addressing Parliament on Friday, he is scheduled to travel with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Toronto for a meeting with Canadian business leaders to “strengthen private sector investment in Ukraine’s future,” Mr. Trudeau’s office said in a statement.
The Ukrainian leader said Friday that he was looking forward to speaking with Mr. Trudeau about “defense cooperation” and “other topics.”
“I am certain this will be a meaningful visit,” he wrote on social media.
Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trudeau will also attend an event for Ukrainian Canadians. Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, whose mother was Ukrainian and who raised her children speaking that country’s language, will also speak.
Mr. Zelensky flew to Canada from Washington, where he spent a long day lobbying Congress for more aid, meeting with President Biden at the White House and speaking at the National Archives. Earlier in the week he visited New York, where he addressed the United Nations Security Council.
There is broad support for Ukraine in Canada, where about 1.4 million people identify as Ukrainian. Canada has taken in more than 175,000 Ukrainians since Russia’s invasion last year, according to Mr. Trudeau’s office.
Canada is also one of Ukraine’s biggest financial backers after the United States, Britain and some European nations. It has provided just under 5 billion Canadian dollars, or about $3.7 billion, in financial assistance and another 1.8 billion dollars in military aid that includes Leopard 2 tanks, ammunition, armored vehicles, air defense and artillery systems, and training in Latvia for Ukrainian troops.
“We have huge and deep ties with that country in friendship and values,” Mr. Trudeau said during a visit to The New York Times in Manhattan on Thursday. He added that Canada is also backing Ukraine because “if Russia ends up profiting from this, if this ends up having been a positive thing in any way, shape or form for Russia, that leaves us all the way worse off for the coming decades.”
In Ottawa on Friday, Mr. Trudeau plans to reiterate Canada’s continuing military, economic, humanitarian and developmental support for Ukraine as the country continues to defend itself against “Russia’s brutal and unjustifiable invasion,” the statement said.
On Thursday, Mr. Trudeau said that while support for Ukraine remains strong in Canada, his own country is seeing “a little bit” of people on the far right “parroting back” Russian propaganda.
He added that “you don’t see the leader of the Conservative Party being as unequivocal against Russia as you might expect.” The Conservatives are currently ahead of Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals in polls, although an election is not likely for about two years.
Mr. Zelensky’s visit to Canada is his second as Ukraine’s president. He attended a conference about the country along with Mr. Trudeau at the University of Toronto a few months after his election in 2019. On Friday, he will become only the fifth foreign leader to have addressed Canada’s Parliament twice, a group that includes President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. His first address, last year, was virtual.