Carney Speech

 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Tuesday, framing the current moment as a structural break in global politics.

The “rules-based international order” has given way to unconstrained great-power rivalry, he says.  “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. ”  He describes a world in which “geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.”

Drawing on Thucydides and Václav Havel, Carney rejects accommodation and ritualized compliance. He warns that hoping to “go along to get along” will not buy safety: “It won’t.”

Invoking Havel’s metaphor of “living within a lie,” he urges states and firms to stop performing faith in a system that no longer functions. “It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.”

Carney argues that globalization’s promise of mutual benefit has inverted as integration is weaponized: “Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”

Multilateral institutions—“the WTO, the UN, the COP”—are, he says, “greatly diminished,” prompting understandable moves toward strategic autonomy. Yet a world of fortresses would be “poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.”

"Values-based realism"

Canada’s response is what he calls “values-based realism”: “principled in our commitment” to sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights, and the UN Charter, but “pragmatic” about divergent interests and incremental progress.

Canada will “take on the world as it is,” calibrating relationships so their depth reflects values, and pairing principles with power: “We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength.”

Domestically, he cites tax cuts, removal of interprovincial trade barriers, fast-tracking “a trillion dollars of investment” in energy, AI, critical minerals, and corridors, and doubling defence spending by 2030 to build domestic industry.

Internationally, Canada is diversifying through a comprehensive EU partnership (including SAFE), twelve recent trade and security deals, new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar, and negotiations with India, ASEAN, Mercosur, and others.

"Variable geomety"

Carney outlines “variable geometry”—issue-specific coalitions—as the practical alternative to nostalgia or naïve multilateralism. Examples include Ukraine (“a core member of the Coalition of the Willing”), Arctic security alongside Greenland and Denmark with an “unwavering” Article 5 commitment, bridging the CPTPP and the EU into a 1.5-billion-person trading bloc, G7-anchored buyers’ clubs for critical minerals, and democratic cooperation on AI to avoid choosing “between hegemons and hyperscalers.”

The speech closes with a call for middle powers to act together: “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” Sovereignty, he argues, is hollow when performed in subordination. “Stop invoking the ‘rules-based international order’ as though it still functions as advertised.” Build resilience, apply standards consistently, and reduce coercive leverage. “We are taking the sign out of the window.” The old order “is not coming back,” but, he concludes, middle powers can “build something better, stronger, and more just” by naming reality and acting collectively.

Offical text of the PM's speech [link]