To Grasp the Power of Carney’s Davos Speech, Let’s Break It Down

[Editor’s note: A version of this piece first appeared on Vancouver writer Chris Cannon’s Substack Communication Breakdown and is republished here, including three footnotes, with permission.]

“Davos turned Canada’s prime minister into a Global Star,” proclaimed the New York Times. Yes, but how?

Although the World Economic Forum was billed as “The Spirit of Dialogue,” it was Mark Carney's monologue that stole the show — a speech that directly challenged the world’s superpowers by calling for the world’s average powers to step the hell up.

Those weren’t Carney’s exact words, but they may as well have been. (1)

Let’s break it down.

Much of the dialogue over the next few days will focus on where the puck is going…

This was how Carney was introduced by forum co-chair Larry Fink — CEO of BlackRock, the largest money-management firm in the world — using the puck to represent the global order. This isn’t just a wink to hockey (and thus Canada); it’s a specific reference to a quote attributed to Wayne Gretzky, whose dad told him, “skate where the puck's going, not where it's been.”

It’s a prescient introduction, as Carney’s speech is a clear dismissal of where the puck is — trapped in the corner where the most bruising players want to keep it — and a vision of how the craftier players can work together to get it to centre ice.

The theme of rupture

Carney begins…

It’s both a pleasure and a duty to be with you tonight in this pivotal moment that Canada and the world are going through.

Today, I want to talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality where the large main powers of geopolitics have no constraints. On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers, like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the various states.

The power of the less powerful starts with honesty.

It seems that every day, we are reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.

Well, it won’t. So, what are our options?

In this opening section, Carney could easily pass for Barack Obama, whose talent for oratory is unsurpassed in modern American politics. Using rhetorical devices such as…

anaphora (repeating a word in successive clauses — “To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.”)

… and…

antithesis (balancing a phrase with contrasting concepts — pleasure/duty, end/beginning, power/less powerful, strong/weak)

… Carney sets a studied, lyrical tone, and begs you to listen.

His use of the Athenian historian Thucydides is particularly significant, a quote from the Melian Dialogue in The History of the Peloponnesian War, in which the powerful Athenians tell the underdog Melians:

“You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

This is no random selection. The Athenians were not concerned with the morality of their power play, only the power in play — they the stronger, and Melos the weaker, who must pay tribute to Athens or be destroyed. Carney knows exactly who’s who in the modern version of this tale, and, like Melos, Canada is not interested in bending the knee. (2)

The references to Václav Havel

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel — later president — wrote an essay called “The Power of the Powerless.” In it, he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He doesn’t believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. Not through violence alone but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.

Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.

This is Carney’s “the emperor has no clothes” moment.

Like Thucydides, Havel was an intentional choice by Carney squarely aimed at a European audience. It is from Havel’s The Power of the Powerless that we get the opening line, “A spectre is haunting Eastern Europe: the spectre of what in the West is called dissent,” a direct flipping of the classic line from Marx, “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism.”

Havel’s manifesto challenged the oppressive communist governments in Soviet Bloc countries during the Cold War, seeking to inspire resistance to totalitarianism by calling out those who support such rule simply by not speaking against it. This mirrors the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, a common story in many cultures across history that echo the true nature of remaining neutral in matters of injustice: that silence is complicity.

“When the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack,” says Carney. He is calling on the world’s collection of average powers to stop burying their heads in their towels, waiting for this moment in history to pass. The puck is not going back to neutral ice.

But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied — the WTO [World Trade Organization], the UN [United Nations], COP [Conference of the Parties] — the very architecture of collective problem-solving, are under threat.

And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions, and they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let’s be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable.

And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They’ll buy insurance, increase options, in order to rebuild sovereignty — sovereignty that was once grounded in rules but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This room knows this is classic risk management. Risk management comes at a price. But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum. And the question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality — we must — the question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Defining ‘us vs. them’

Here, Carney defines the true “us vs. them” — not superpower versus average power, but sovereignty versus dependence. The recent aggressive posturing by the U.S. against Canada and other Western countries has turned these mutually beneficial alliances into abusive relationships defined by gaslighting and threats to their very autonomy, laying bare the vulnerability of average powers to the whims of their stronger economic and military partners.

The line between the U.S. and Greenland runs through the heart of Canada, a country understandably hesitant to be hemmed in by America on two sides. Neither is Canada eager to have its claims on the Arctic challenged by yet another superpower, choosing instead to continue its warm relationship with Denmark and other NATO countries in respecting Greenland’s independence — because as goes Greenland, so could go Canada.

Now Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old comfortable assumptions, that our geography and alliance memberships, automatically conferred prosperity and security. That assumption is no longer valid.

And our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland, has termed “value-based realism.” Or, to put another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, and respect for human rights. And pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.

So, we’re engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be. We are calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. And we’re prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence and, given the fluidity of the world at the moment, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next. And we are no longer relying on just the strength of our values but also the value of our strength.

And we are building that strength at home. Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, on capital gains and on business investment. We have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade. We are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors and beyond. We are doubling our defence spending by the end of this decade and we’re doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.

And we are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed to a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU [European Union], including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. In the past few days, we’ve concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free-trade pacts with India, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], Thailand, the Philippines and Mercosur.

We’re doing something else. To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry: in other words, different coalitions for different issues, based on common values and interests. So on Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.

Our commitment to NATO’s Article 5 is unwavering. So we’re working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic 8, to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through Canada’s unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft and boots on the ground, boots on the ice.

Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.

On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7, so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we’re co-operating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.

This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on their institutions. It’s building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. What it’s doing is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities. Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu. But I’d also say the great powers can afford, for now, to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not.

But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great-power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. We shouldn’t allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the hard fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together.

An appeal to values and strength

Here Carney throws down the gauntlet to the U.S. He calls for an end to world domination by superpowers through collaborative partnerships of average powers, while at the same time setting Canada up as the natural leader of this coalition, thus becoming a political superpower of its own.

He underlines this message with the smooth chiasmus “… we are no longer relying on just the strength of our values but also the value of our strength.” The chiasmus is a simple reversal of terms to make a phrase memorable, but it can easily become trite. I can only assume there were more of these nuggets in early drafts of this speech — kudos to Carney and his team for showing restraint.

It does not hurt that this appeal to Canadians’ values and strength — two things in which hearty and helpful Canadians show deep pride — works for Carney personally. As popular as he is in Canada (largely for the way he handles Trump), he’s no Pierre Trudeau or JFK. Carney is a businessman, after all. On his first day in office, he eliminated the federal carbon tax, incensing environmentalists. He is openly pro-growth and pro-business, and has been successfully pursuing economic agreements with countries that have questionable human rights records, such as Qatar, China and Saudi Arabia — angering Canadian progressives and American nationalists alike.

Carney seeks no apologies for this agenda — he knows you have to operate in the world you inhabit if you want to create the world you wish for. “Since my government took office” is a clear humblebrag, as Carney wants it known that he is the one skating ahead of the puck. This section of the speech does more than seek to unite global averagepowers under Canadian leadership, but ties Carney himself to Canada’s current trajectory, a not-so-subtle sign to Canadians that he is the man to lead them in the post-America world. (3)

Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live the truth”?

First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great-power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion.

It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window. It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the old order to be restored, it means creating institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion.

That’s building a strong domestic economy that should always be every government’s immediate priority. And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it’s the material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

The case for Canada

This is Carney’s “fuck around and find out” moment. Canada has been bobbing and weaving to America’s haymakers since Trump first started this feud, punishing his own cities for doing business with Canada and teasing an invasion with his bizarre “51st state” campaign. Like most of the Western world, the Great White North was just trying to get through the moment, knowing that pendulums swing, and under new leadership, America would eventually step back from the brink and redouble its ties with its largest military and economic partner.

But Carney knew better. As much as his Davos appearance announced him to the world, it should have come as no surprise. Carney cued up this moment last year when he was promoting his first budget, which was long on independence and short on American partnerships.

“The decades-long process of an ever-closer economic relationship between the Canadian and U.S. economies is over,” Carney told a group of university students last October. “Many of our former strengths — based on close ties to America — have become our vulnerabilities.”

This shot across the bow was largely ignored by the U.S., who continued its threats of annexation and on-again-off-again tariffs. America decided instead to continue fucking around, and now it is finding out.

So: Canada. Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. In other words, we have capital, talent, we also have a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but; a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

And we have something else. We have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.

We are taking the sign out of the window. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But we believe that, from the fracture, we can build something bigger better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers. The countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine co-operation.

The powerful have their power. But we have something too: the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

In his eloquent closing, Carney returns to the hypnotic pattern of anaphora — “to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together” — summed up by the well-worn metaphor of the future as a physical path.

But Carney committed two of the most offensive sins in Trumpland.

First, he claimed that Canada doesn’t need America, contradicting Trump’s year-long campaign of presenting its northern neighbour as a suckling pig that couldn’t exist without the mother’s milk that the U.S. lactates in the form of buying power and military defence. This is a swipe at the schoolyard bully, chaffed that you called on all his victims to stop surrendering their milk money.

“Canada lives because of the United States,” said Trump after hearing Carney’s speech.

“Canada doesn’t live because of the United States,” replied Carney in his post-Davos national address. “Canada thrives because we are Canadian.”

Just as Carney’s use of antithesis throughout the speech unites individual passages, his overall message is this unspoken antithesis of Carney as the future and Trump as the past. Trump surely went to Davos to remind the world who controls the puck. But his notorious lack of attention span keeps him trapped in the moment, unable to look up-ice and see that the game is changing; that Canada is going on the offence.

Footnotes:

(1) I’ve found numerous versions of this speech online, including the copy put out by the Prime Minister’s office. I discovered that mainstream media outlets simply reprinted what they were sent, instead of comparing the written version to what was actually said. Speakers often change wording as they go, and Carney made a few choice course-corrections as he spoke. The version I use here is verbatim to the speech he actually gave.

(2) It should be noted that Athens destroyed Melos, who did not get the assistance from Sparta they had hoped for. It seems Carney is trying to get ahead of the game here.

(3) Unlike the U.S., Canada holds elections within certain timeframes rather than on a pre-scheduled basis (every four years). Prime Minister Carney will undoubtedly call a snap election in the coming months, using his Davos stardom to add numbers to his party and cement his position.