By Jeremy Kinsman

January 20, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech Tuesday to the Davos crowd that was the most consequential speech on global affairs I have ever heard from a Canadian PM (and I drafted a few of them).

Many Canadians may not grasp the height of Carney’s established reputation with this crowd — especially with European leaders, officials, bankers, fund guys, editorial writers, etc. In Davos, Carney is on home ice. They came to hear advice from one of their own who knows the score.

The Prime Minister stuck it to the room that, as he has said forcefully to Canadians since becoming Prime Minister on March 14, the old world order is no more. We are “naive” to rely mentally on the postwar architecture of multilateral cooperation to address shared global challenges. It is “ruptured,” unable to cope with the re-emergence of predatory nationalism from “great powers” who are strong enough to “go it alone.”

He urges “middle-power” non-compliance that abandons the deferential defensive technique against “intimidation” from the strongest countries; of “going along to get along.” Carney urges like-minded countries to band together to sustain vital international cooperation as best they can.

It was refreshing for this writer, who has laboured for a lifetime within the “rules-based order” of multilateral diplomacy to hear it called out for its asymmetry, in the way the rules of that order were invoked against some, but not against all. He called out great powers who have invaded countries with impunity, while the order is invoked in the name of international law to punish and suppress smaller, more marginal, or objectionable countries.

Everybody knows trade rules were designed to favour the interests of the developed market economies that drove the design.

These truths that everybody knows have corrupted the system as much as global revolutionary doctrine. But instead of favouring a collective re-set of the rules, the world is being traumatized by a might makes right aggression creed from the strongest powers, who now reject globalism in favour of predatory nationalism.

Carney acknowledges the biggest powers “have the market size,” and the leverage of military might, to dictate results, but says “hegemons cannot continue to monetize their relationships.”

I was personally chuffed to hear Carney open and close his speech with quotes from a personal hero of democracy and freedom, Václav Havel, who in 1979 wrote of shopkeepers in his then-communist country who placed in their shop windows a placard proclaiming the communist slogan “Workers of the World Unite” so as to “get along”, until one shopkeeper didn’t do so, and then the false facade began to crumble, as it finally did in November, 1989.

Carney was asking the Davos crowd to end the charade about the world’s rules-based order. It is “not coming back,” he said, so “let’s be honest…Nostalgia is not a strategy.”

President Trump will be in Davos Wednesday. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada laid out a strategic plan for everybody else.

What does he propose as a strategy? He absolutely urges countries to avoid “subordination” to great power intimidation. That message is resonating (at last) with European members of NATO and the EU. Emmanuel Macron is affirming that Europeans prefer “respect to bullies.”

On the current, overarching crisis, per Trump’s declaration the US “will have” Greenland, the “hard way or the easy way,” he stated flatly that Canada “stands fully with Greenland and Denmark and their unique right to determine Greenland’s future” and that this will be a test of NATO. He also said that “Canada strongly opposes tariffs” against countries that oppose Trump’s takeover plans for Greenland.

Carney recommends “calibrating (bilateral) relationships whose depth reflects our values.” But we need to be “pragmatic” in building multilateral groupings with “variable geometry” to pursue essential shared objectives.

Examples include building a cooperative grouping of members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the EU, and Canada, to work together to ensure the World Trade Organization can function for the common good.

He spoke several times about the necessity of strengthening cooperation on the Arctic, within NATO, in part as an “off-ramp” for US Greenland security concerns, but more widely, including to counter an obvious Russian threat there.

I was very pleased to hear the Prime Minister speak of the naturally aligned interests of Canada and the “NB8,” the five Nordic and Baltic EU countries. Indeed, he made the surprising assertion their combined GDP represents 20% of the global total.

GPT reports it’s actually closer to 4%, but the substantive value of Canadian cooperation with these very aligned societies should be cited for their high potential; the Prime Minister noted the NB8 joint capacity in building submarines and military aircraft, a topical Canadian need.

In speaking of building a “web of connections,” Carney cited Canada’s range of new trade agreements with China, India, Mercosur, and the EU, specifying Canada’s inclusion in the EU SAFE program for building joint military infrastructure.

He commented on the recent strategic partnership with China that some consider a mistake. Carney made clear that there are guardrails against abuse of sovereignty (such as alleged Chinese interference in Canadian elections). The initiative to re-set a strategic relationship is “not defence, but offence,” an “additive” connection to the world’s 2nd largest economy and our 2nd largest relationship.

The Davos World Economic Forum was for years a pulpit for globalization without borders. It is no longer. Mark Carney reminded the audience that globalization detached leaders’ interests “from where you live.” But it remains a comfortable setting for “globalists” who recognize our inherent interdependencies and enriching opportunities. The world needs a multilateralism that works.

He did lay out Canada’s assets in addressing the future; an energy superpower, with sound finances, minerals, the most-educated and talented population, that values our pluralism. Canadians know, he mentioned, that “compliance won’t buy safety,” that we “need to be strong enough to project our values.”

President Trump will be in Davos Wednesday. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada laid out a strategic plan for everybody else.

Policy Contributing Writer Jeremy Kinsman served as Canada’s ambassador to Russia, high commissioner to the UK, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to the European Union. He also served as minister at the Canadian embassy in Washington. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian International Council.