By Colin Robertson

January 26, 2026

Mark Carney’s speeches last week in Davos and Québec City should be read as a single argument.

One addresses the world, the other our nation, but together they articulate a governing credo that seeks to integrate Canadian foreign and domestic policy more tightly than at any time since the early Cold War.

Carney’s starting point is blunt. The postwar order is not strained; it is ruptured. Hegemons want to dominate through might: trade and finance are increasingly weaponized, and multilateral institutions struggle to discipline power.

The comforting assumption that rules, norms, and institutions will reliably protect middle powers no longer holds.

Rather than retreat into nostalgia or isolation, Carney proposes a recalibration. In his Davos address, Carney embraces what Finnish President Alexander Stubb calls ‘values-based realism’ – a framework that affirms democracy, sovereignty, and human rights while accepting that influence increasingly requires engagement with partners who do not share those values. Progress, Carney argues, is now incremental rather than transformative.

This marks a rhetorical break with the language of Canadian foreign policy since the 1990s. The ‘rules-based international order’ remains a reference point, but no longer the bulwark for democracy that it was designed, in part, to be. Values still matter, but they are not self-enforcing. In a world of disinformation and coercive power, credibility flows from consistency, capacity and constant communication as much as from moral clarity.

The operational core of Carney’s approach is what he calls ‘variable geometry’. Rather than relying exclusively on universal multilateralism, Canada will pursue overlapping, issue-specific coalitions—different partners for different problems. NATO and Nordic allies anchor security; the G7 and EU determine sanctions and technology governance; CPTPP partners advance trade diversification; buyer’s clubs secure critical minerals and clean- energy supply chains.

This approach reflects reality. Consensus among 193 states is elusive. Progress increasingly comes from smaller groups of like-minded nations. Variable geometry allows Canada to remain engaged without waiting for unanimity.

Yet it carries risks. Coalition diplomacy is resource-intensive and fragile. It requires sustained political attention, bureaucratic competence, and a tolerance for complexity. There is also the danger of diffusion: being present everywhere without shaping outcomes decisively puts a premium on capacity and excellence within our diplomatic and trade commissioner services.

Carney’s treatment of the United States is notably unsentimental. The relationship remains foundational, but dependence is no longer a strategy. Protectionism, polarization and political volatility are now structural features of American politics, not temporary aberrations. Canada must hedge without antagonizing, diversifying trade and supply chains while preserving economic integration.

China is approached with similar sobriety. Engagement is selective, neither naïve nor exclusionary. Canada will cooperate where interests align, while actively reducing vulnerabilities in critical sectors. This, too, is hedging.

Where Carney’s vision becomes most distinctive—and politically demanding—is his insistence that foreign policy now begins at home.

Strategic autonomy, he argued in Québec City, rests on domestic strength. Housing affordability becomes an economic and social security issue. Productivity, boosted by critical infrastructure, becomes a geopolitical variable. A muscular Canadian Armed Forces ensures our sovereignty and contributes to collective security. Immigration, inclusion, and reconciliation become sources of resilience rather than ancillary concerns.

Preserving national unity and explaining what is happening and what we are doing about it will test the communications skills of our leadership.

Housing and critical infrastructure sit at the centre of this agenda. Carney frames mass construction as nation-building, echoing the postwar settlement. Skills, AI, and infrastructure investment are cast as tools of sovereignty. Interprovincial trade barriers are a self-inflicted wound that the premiers must urgently resolve.

Even law and order is reinterpreted through this lens. Public safety, border control, and defence spending are presented not as ideological pivots but as prerequisites for social trust and international credibility.

But do Canadians understand this?

Missing in the speeches was a frank admission that the necessary changes and adaptation are going to require sacrifice and hardship that will adversely affect some regions and sectors more than others. Adjustment assistance, including retraining, will help mitigate the inevitable dislocation and distress.

Preserving national unity and explaining what is happening and what we are doing about it will test the communications skills of our leadership, starting with the prime minister, and the premiers.

For Canadians to buy in requires a communications strategy that is effective, transparent and honest,

In a time of precarity, when Canadians are stressed by costs of everyday living, they deserve nothing less.

Carney’s credo is coherent but demanding. It assumes a capable state, disciplined politics, an efficient bureaucracy, and sustained consensus involving the various levels of government, business, labour and civil society.

Canada is being asked to grow up strategically: to accept pragmatism and life in a harsher world. Only by rebuilding the foundations of power at home can Canada exercise influence abroad.

Variable geometry requires stamina. Values-based realism requires judgment. Nation-building requires speed.

Whether Carney succeeds will depend on his ability to communicate convincingly while translating his plans into institutions, coalitions, and substantive results.

Policy Contributing Writer Colin Robertson, a former career diplomat, is a fellow and host of the Global Exchange podcast with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Ottawa.