By Don Newman

January 20, 2026

In Davos on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered the most important foreign policy speech by a Canadian politician since Lester Pearson proposed the first United Nations Peacekeeping force at the UN in November of 1956.

Seventy years ago, Pearson proposed a formula for bringing the Suez crisis between Egypt, France and Great Britain to an end. It won him that year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Carney chose the annual World Economic Forum for his address. He will be unlikely to win a Nobel or any other prize for his remarks. But if they are taken up, what he said could help smooth the rough edges of a world that has “ruptured” into a great-power geopolitical and economic rivalry.

Carney sounded a call for middle-sized powers like Canada to build coalitions with countries that share common values, seek rules that apply fairly to each country and to resist the oppressive ways — including economic — in which hegemonic great powers are now seeking to control the world with no restraints upon them.

To that end, and perhaps as a re-positioning of his China visit last week, Carney said middle powers must resist the temptation to try to curry favour with great powers. To do that is not enhanced sovereignty, but the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. Instead of competing with each other, these middle powers should combine to create a third path with impact.

“We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together,” Carney said.

Carney’s remarks were addressed to an international audience but also to Canadians. He was talking about Donald Trump, although he never mentioned the U.S. President’s name. Trump is threatening the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with his talk of taking over Greenland, a part of Denmark.

Carney’s remarks were addressed to an international audience but also to Canadians. He was talking about Donald Trump, although he never mentioned the U.S. President’s name.

Some NATO members have sent token numbers of troops to Greenland to show solidarity, despite threats of even higher U.S. tariffs. Canada has been considering doing the same, although much more of our trade than Europe’s would be affected because of Canadian reliance on the American market.

In his speech Carney, reiterated Canada’s stand in the crisis. Canada, he said, “stands firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully supports their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.”

Perhaps it was irony, perhaps serendipity, but Carney’s speech came the same day that Trump posted from the White House a map of North America showing all of Canada covered by the American flag, marking his inaugural anniversary by doubling down on his frequent threats to make Canada the 51st state and more recent warning that Canada is his next Arctic target after Greenland.

It also came on the morning the main story in the Globe and Mail confirmed Canada’s military is working on plans if the United States attacks and tries to conquer Canada. The military is also contemplating acquiring weapons that would be a greater deterrence to such an attack.

Much of what Carney said in Davos, he has said before in Canada. But he has never presented all of his ideas on the global order pulled together in one speech, or to the most concentrated economic policy audience in the world.

It seems that Carney has decided there is no point trying to curry favour with the Americans in the hope that Washington and Trump will renew CUSMA this year under terms favourable or at least fair to Canada. The Carney doctrine posits that the world is getting more Hobbesian and brutal, but middle powers like Canada can mitigate that.

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

Mark Carney may one day deliver another speech in Davos as Canada’s Prime Minister. It is unlikely that it will be as important as this one.

Policy Columnist Don Newman is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a lifetime member and a past president of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.