Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss city of Davos. We offer you its full text.
“It is a pleasure – and a duty – to be with you at this turning point for Canada and for the world.
Today I will speak about the rupture in the world order, the end of a beautiful story and the beginning of a brutal reality, where geopolitics among great powers is subject to no constraints.
But I also declare to you that other countries, especially middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.
The strength of the weaker begins with honesty.
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 do what they can and the weak suffer, which is normal.
This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable - the natural logic of international relations is reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to understand each other. To adapt. To... To avoid problems. Let's hope that following the rules will buy us safety.
So what are our options?
In 1978, the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel wrote an essay called "The Power of the Powerless." In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system survive?
His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this owner would put a sign in his window: "Workers of the World, Unite!" He didn't believe it. No one did. But he put the sign up anyway - to avoid trouble, to show and make it clear that he was following the rules. And because every shopkeeper on every street did the same, the system continued to exist.
Not just through violence, but also through the participation of ordinary people in rituals that they secretly knew were false.
Havel called this “living a lie.” The power of the system comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to act as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops acting – when the greengrocer takes down his sign – the illusion begins to crack.
It’s time for companies and states to take down their signs.
For decades, countries like Canada thrived on what we called a rules-based international order. We subscribed to its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue a values-based foreign policy under its protection.
We knew that the story of the rules-based international order was partly false. That the strongest would get away with it when it suited them. That trade rules were applied asymmetrically. And that international law was applied with varying severity 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 dispute resolution frameworks.
So we put the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we have largely avoided highlighting the gaps between rhetoric and reality.
This deal is no longer working.
Let me be blunt: we are in a rupture, not a transition.
Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have exposed the risks of extreme global integration.
More recently, great powers have begun to use economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
You cannot “live the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes a source of your subjugation.
The multilateral institutions that middle powers relied on – the WTO, the UN, the Conference of the Parties – have been the architecture of collective problem-solving – are greatly reduced.
As a result, many countries are coming to the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, finance, and supply chains.
This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed, power, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must defend yourself.
But let’s be clear about where this leads. The fortress world will be poorer, more fragile, and less resilient.
And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unfettered pursuit of their power and interests, the benefits of “transactionalism” become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot monetize their relationships all the time.
Allies will diversify to protect themselves from uncertainty. They will buy insurance. They will increase their options. This will restore sovereignty that was once based on rules, but increasingly based on the ability to withstand pressure.
As I said, such classical risk management has a price, but this price of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than each person building their own fortress. Shared standards reduce fragmentation.
Complementarity is a positive sum.
The question for middle powers like Canada is not whether they can adapt to this new reality. They must.
The question is whether we adapt simply by building higher walls – or whether we can do something more ambitious.
Canada was among the first to hear the wake-up call that led us to fundamentally change our strategic posture.
Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance membership automatically ensure our prosperity and security is no longer valid.
Our new approach is based on what Alexander Stubb calls “values-based realism“ – or, to put it another way, we strive to be principled and pragmatic.
Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition on the use of force except in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, respect for human rights.
Pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often gradual, that interests differ, that not every partner shares our values. We engage broadly, strategically, with our eyes open. We actively accept the world as it is, rather than waiting for the world to be the way we want it to be.
Canada calibrates its relationships so that their depth reflects our values.
We prioritize broad engagement to maximize our impact, given the fluidity of the global order, the risks it poses, and the stakes of what lies ahead.
We no longer rely solely on the strength of our values, but also on the value of our power.
We are building that power at home.
Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on income, capital gains, and business investment; removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade; and are accelerating a trillion dollars in investments in energy, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and more.
We are doubling our defense spending by 2030, and doing so in ways that build our domestic industries.
We are rapidly diversifying our operations abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, the European Defence Procurement Agreements.
In the last six months, we have signed twelve other trade and security agreements on four continents.
In the last few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar.
We are negotiating free trade agreements with India, ASEAN, Thailand, the Philippines and Mercosur.
To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry – different coalitions on different issues based on values and interests.
With regard to Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest contributors per capita to its defense and security.
With regard to Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly behind Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future. Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering.
We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic states) to further secure the alliance's northern and western flanks, including through Canada's unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar systems, submarines, aircraft, and ground combat units. Canada strongly opposes tariffs on Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve shared goals of security and prosperity for the Arctic.
On plurilateral trade, we support efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people.
On critical minerals, we are forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify its supplies away from concentrated supplies.
On artificial intelligence, we are collaborating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we are not ultimately forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-states.
This is not naive multilateralism. Nor does it rely on weakened institutions.
It's about building coalitions that work issue by issue with partners who share enough common ground to act together.
And it creates a dense network of connections in trade, investment, culture that we can leverage for future challenges and opportunities.
Middle powers need to act together, because if you're not at the negotiating table, you're on the table.
Great powers can afford to act alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers don't. But when we negotiate only bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate out of weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.
This is not sovereignty. It is the exercise of sovereignty while accepting submission.
In a world of great power rivalry, the parties between them have a choice: to compete for each other's favor or to unite to create a third way with influence.
We should not let the rise of hard power blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong - if we choose to exercise them together.
Which brings me back to Havel.
What would it mean for middle powers to "live with the truth"?
That means naming reality. Stop referring to the "rules-based international order" as if it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period of increasing rivalry between great powers, where the most powerful pursue their interests by using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.
That means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but remain silent when it comes from another, we hold the sign in the window.
That means building what we claim to believe in.
Instead of waiting for the old order to be restored, we create institutions and agreements that work in the way described.
And that means reducing the levers that allow for coercion. Building a strong domestic economy should always be a priority for any government. Diversifying internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material basis for an honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to take principled positions by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.
Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We possess vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are among the largest and most sophisticated investors in the world. We have the capital, the talent, and a government with the enormous fiscal capacity to act decisively.
And we have the values that many others aspire to.
Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public space is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability.
We are a stable, reliable partner – in a world that is anything but that – a partner who builds and values long-term relationships.
Canada has something else: awareness of what is happening and the determination to respond appropriately.
We understand that this rupture requires more than adaptation. It requires honesty about the world as it is.
We are taking the sign out of the window.
The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.
But from the rupture we can build something better, stronger and more just.
This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of true cooperation.
The strong have their strength. But we also have something – the ability to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.
This is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently.
And it is a path wide open to any country that is willing to take it with us.