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6:09 am, January 22nd, 2026 - 44 comments
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Tags: canada, Mark Carney, rules based order, speaking truth to power
The remarkable, standing ovation speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Full transcript here.
I might sit this one out until I see what Carney actually does , rather than what he says
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/world-leaders-show-caution-trumps-broader-board-peace-amid-fears-un-2026-01-18/
Carney welcomed the news of Maduro's abduction
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/01/06/opinion/carney-maduro-abduction-trump-economy-sovereignty
I'm with Francesca; Matthew 7:16 is my watchword. I haven't much time for what people say they're going to do – let's see them do it. As for those hypocrites who claim to have gone through mental agonies before they caved in and did the wrong thing ….
did you listen to the speech about what Canada are already doing?
It's very good that Carney stated what we all need to face: that the world has changed now and there's no going back to the compromises many made.
However, he seems to have been OK compromising, knowing the international rules based order was far from perfect, but going along with it so long as it benefitted him or his country. Actually the previous set-up always benefitted the well off domestically and internationally way more than the poorer classes.
Also, I'm not sure about the Havel quote: I get that Havel was brave to go against Russian occupation. And also maybe he meant that the Soviet authoritarianism's use of the "workers of the world unite" slogan was also an empty slogan in that the workers were actually oppressed under the Soviet regime.
However, does Carney/Havel also mean that workers shouldn't unite against the oppression by and in the interests of the bloated ruling classes?
And many of us always knew that the US was not on board with the rules-based order, both with respect to the US’ attacks, invasions and occupations of other countries, (from Korea & Viet Nam to Gaza); the CIA-induced regime changes; and domestically with the high level of income and wealth inequalities in the west, and especially in the US.
And many of us have also been protesting about a lot of the situations I’ve mentioned for decades.
yes, I had to watch that bit twice. It was initially jarring, but agree he was talking about the authoritarianism of that regime. Not just an empty slogan but a mind fuck where people were expected to publicly support something while living under conditions that prevented that from happening (workers uniting in a real way). Parallels with the mindfuck of Trump's administration where truth and reality is stood on its head.
I don’t think the point was to say workers shouldn’t unite, but it was still an odd example to hear from a centrist left politician in this context. I guess he doesn’t value workers uniting? If he’s more centrist, it makes his speech even more remarkable, but at the level of leadership rather than being leftist.
Yeah: what Havel was describing (and what Carney is riffing on) is that jarring dissonance between the official story and the lived experience of millions of people.
In the Soviet bloc the slogan “Workers of the world unite!” wasn’t an argument against workers uniting. It was a demand that everyone publicly perform belief in a system that was actively preventing genuine solidarity and freedom.
The lie was never that “workers should unite”; the lie was “this regime represents the workers.”
Over time the bargain becomes corrosive: everyone knows it’s false, but everyone keeps acting as if it’s true because that’s the price of getting by. Eventually the performance can’t sustain itself. Not even the state believes its own script.
That’s why the Havel reference lands now. We’ve had our own version of that dissonance with the so-called rules-based order: the rhetoric says one thing, but the lived reality for many has been coercion, inequality, and selective enforcement.
When the gap gets too wide, the “order” stops being an order and becomes just a set of slogans.
I know that you’re short of time but when you read Havel’s essay (https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/1979/01/the-power-of-the-powerless.pdf) or only the parts on the sign in the shopkeeper’s window, you’ll see how Havel used this example and Carney stayed true to that without twisting, distorting, or spinning the original words and meaning.
In short, the placing of the empty and meaningless slogan in the shop window was an act of public compliance and removing the sign was an act of open defiance.
HTH
thanks, that's so good to read even that snippet. I will add to my reading list.
I think Carney did convey that meaning. It was just jarring for lefties around worker rights (but on relistening it made sense).
I agree particularly with the reference to the quotes from Havel that you posted. Havel was, after all, an author and for direct democracy, and artistic/cultural freedom.
I also agree with the main thrust of Carney's speech, to build an alternative and better system through inter-nation collaboration and negotiation.
However, he is more (neo)liberal than left wing and a fairly centrist economist. I don't think it's an accident that he highlighted the greengrocer and that "workers' of the world unite" slogan from the whole of the Havel essay. Carney is very focused on doing business in his speech. Economics, business etc should never take precedence over human rights, income/wealth inequalities, war crimes etc.
Carney's speech was of course likely to be influenced by the context (an economic forum) and the audience (includes many strong neoliberals). The focus of his speech was trade, economics, and physical nation-state security.
So I do think we need to work more towards a left wing idea of what we want as a way forward, and then to make that known to our government.
I do not agree with some of his points for a way forward: eg lower taxes; I'd need to know more about if he is onboard with AI hyperscalers like Amazon (I'm very wary of such clouds, etc).
I do agree with reducing the ability to use economic leverage to subordinate other countries and would add that sanctions shouldn't be used by the powerful to chaotically undermine the stability of states in preparation for regime change.
you can watch the video or read the transcript if you actually want to know what Canada are already doing.
But I suspect you are engaging in purity politics, whereby any leader making actual change is dismissed because they don't fit some ideal of political purity. In this case, the whole Carney is useless because he works with Trump is superficial and lazy politics. There is zero analysis of Carney's strategy.
This right here is why the left is losing.
I couldn't agree more!
We can abhor what is taking place in the US under Trump and mourn the collapse of the rules-based international order, while at the same time taking a pragmatic, realistic, and honest look at how to navigate whatever replaces it.
And sure, the old order wasn’t neutral. It encoded Western advantage and often dressed power up as principle. But it was still a comparatively stable framework, and that predictability mattered. For small states, stability isn’t a moral trophy; it’s a material condition of sovereignty. It keeps coercion costly, reduces uncertainty, and preserves room to manoeuvre.
The alternative isn’t “justice”; it’s volatility. And volatility is where the strong do what they like and the weak absorb the consequences.
What Carney is trying to articulate is a possible path to avoiding that volatility. We cannot choose to ignore the United States. Nor can we, even collectively, force it to behave in a way we expect.
But what we can do is build alternative structures rooted in trust, democracy, and shared respect for international law, so that when the US lurches, the whole house doesn’t come crashing down on the rest of us.
I agree there needs to be a solidarity of small states and with middle states.
Only Carney wasn't talking about "small states" but "middle states". I'm not sure why he made that the focus. It echoes a bit of the current Labour Party focus being more on attracting middle-income voters, and making the most impoverished classes secondary.
because of the size of Canada and its place in the world. He's speaking to what middle states can do in relation to the large states.
The whole way through I was thinking, what would this speech sound like coming from NZ? (Not Luxon obviously, but possible Ardern). Where do we fit into the narrative he just established, and what can we do? I think the small nations speech needs to come from a small nation leader, not someone like Carney. He opened a door though imo, next move is ours.
small states like NZ can't reorientate our economy around defence spending, although we should be sensible about our options given the geopolitical shift from the rules based order. But our security will likewise come from allying with progressive states.
That's not true. Plenty of small states already do. All Baltic states. Singapore. Laos. Denmark.
But we shouldn't. Honestly our biggest budgetary drive into the 2030s is to the health and wellbeing of old people – in health and NZSuper spending.
Carney noted "…A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself…."
We can feed ourselves more to good luck than good management, but the utterly wrong headed fossil fuel obsession of this government means we can't fuel ourselves. We should be aiming for at least 95% local renewables and a rapid electrification of our vehicle fleet over the next ten years. As for defense – our best defense in distance, so we need to have a military that can protect that distance. That might mean being more pragmatic than principled when dealing with the likes of the Cook Islands and the Solomons – staying out of the range of any conceivable IRBM launch sites should be a top defense priority, and we should tailor our armed forces to be able to enforce that security bottom line on Pacific Island nations. And it is clear now our fate is utterly tied to that of middle power Australia, so we should probably do a deal to base a mechanised infantry battalion there and integrate it into an ANZAC brigade. The option of being based near Brissy would probably help with recruitment as well…
When networks and rules work fine, the hard left and Green sensibilities work fine.
Whereas your kind of commentary focusing on more military strength, strong Australian defence alliances, and more self sufficiency, looks a lot like the NZFirst of old.
Only takes one good scare in the mold of 1977 oil crisis to tilt our entire political posture. Maybe MFAT will start to catch up now, after their dreadful performance over the US tariffs?
Talisman Sabre and Pitch Black were excellent interoperability tests, but like you I'd feel a whole bunch happier with a coupe of C140J's and a ready reaction force up there permanently, to act jointly as governments see fit.
If we can recall the supply chain disruptions of COVID, the long-lead items we would really miss would be engine parts, pharmaceuticals, plastics, heavy steel for large structures, and of course cars and trucks.
Maybe someone enterprising up in Kaitaia will start growing coffee at local scale? $7 a flat white anyone?
I think that's a totally fair point, but only half the story. Because one of the purposes of those old networks and rules was to ensure that left (hard or otherwise) and Green sensibilities never got beyond being 'sensibilities'. They could not take a meaningful, practical form because of entrenched economic power.
The question for me is whether any realisation of Carney's vision offers more space for these sensibilities to take a material form. It might – it's not contradictory to have strong defence and trade alliances with Australia and other Pacifc Rim middle powers that are outside the control of Washington, and also pursue green energy, climate change adaptation, and greater social and economic equality.
But I have some doubts that it is likely. Carney's beautiful exposition of the hypocrisy of the 'rules-based order' where the rules apply to some and not others, has been understood in the third world/global south, and among the 'left' (hard or otherwise) in the global north, for decades. If Carney got his way, what would he and his cohort construct, would it look any different from the current world order minus one deranged hegemon?
I have no idea on that point. But I'd want NZ to reduce dependency on the US in matters of trade, defence and digital infrastructure in collaboration with the Australians and other middle powers as Carney seems to be suggesting. Though I doubt that any National-led government would ever entertain such a course.
Yes!
The prevailing neo-liberal dogma always puts the economy on an unassailable pedestal (‘it’s the economy, stupid’) with everything else as subservient to it, including people’s wellbeing (which is more than good health). Sadly, even more strongly left-leaning comrades, especially the more traditionally-thinking ones, are [still] persuaded and buying into it and making disparaging & patronising comments about the ways of the Greens.
The neo-liberals have successfully hijacked some ‘Green sensibilities’ into cynical marketing ploys (e.g., ethical investment, green-washing, semi-charities & donating, gift-gig economy, etc.) that often is just bullshit tokenism, i.e., the ‘morality plays’ of the Right. So, for example, we have National-voting shopkeepers and business owners who cry foul about crime, hardship, and natural events impacting on their profits who are more than happy to underpay their staff and make them work over-time and who unashamedly put signs on their shop fronts with slogans that are nothing but neo-liberal virtue-signalling that demonstrate their adherence, compliance, and support for the prevailing dogma till the cows come home.
Till the cows have been washed away, even – it's what NZ knows
Best not to peek too soon. "It's a case of slower to go faster." – Luxon
Sorry, a bit off the topic of geopolitical rupture.
He’s not speaking to smaller states yet. Canada can’t be the sole anchor for the alternative he’s sketching, so this feels aimed first at its peers: the UK, the EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea; and arguably India and Brazil.
Individually, those states are vulnerable to pressure from the US or China. Acting together, they’d form a bloc with enough economic, diplomatic, and institutional weight to resist coercion from either.
Once that core exists, smaller states can plug into it. But someone has to go first, and it has to be countries with enough mass to make the proposition credible.
The next part is up to our own leadership.
I actually find this the remarkable bit. That suddenly someone in a position of centrist power stands up and speaks both to the values/ideas/ethics and the pragmatics of the current terrible situation and presents a real alternative.
I also loved how it took us out of the good/bad stuck polarity into a place of let's get real and we don't have to sacrifice all our values to do so.
(really wish someone would do this on climate!)
I think this is a long overdue conversation the left needs to be having if we want to remain relevant in the current political climate.
Moral clarity matters, yes. But morality play politics is a luxury we simply can’t afford. Values that aren’t grounded in strategy or reality don’t constrain power; they just leave it to those least interested in restraint.
we have a massive strategic hole on strategy on the left. What's the solution to that? Most people generally aren't strategic thinkers (and I think this is getting worse with the internet/SM manipulation as well as the constant stress we are all under now). Is it a leadership issue? Or an educational one?
Yes. And also, yes.
The Left’s greatest strength is that it’s made up of thoughtful, committed, intelligent people who genuinely believe in the values they espouse.
Its greatest weakness is that it’s made up of thoughtful, committed, intelligent people who genuinely believe in the values they espouse.
When out of power, that often expresses itself as purity politics: values become a substitute for strategy, and moral clarity becomes a stand-in for political leverage. When in power, those same values can collide with institutional constraints that the movement hasn’t adequately prepared itself to navigate.
I think the Ardern government captured that tension perfectly. It was deeply meaningful at a human and cultural level, but structurally incapable of delivering the scale of change many hoped for. The lesson some drew from that wasn’t “we need better strategy,” but “strategy itself is suspect.”
Breaking that dynamic is hard. But I don’t think it happens through abstract education alone. It happens when strategy becomes safe again; when it’s clearly linked to a credible path to power.
That’s why Labour matters here. Some form of electoral success in November is crucial, not just to govern, but to re-legitimise strategic thinking on the left.
Even if we don’t win, going into the election with a coherent, intelligent, and realistic alternative would do enormous work in making strategy feel like an ethical responsibility rather than a betrayal.
Just look behind you and you can see the power of international common purpose still in play.
The CPTPP that Ardern was instrumental in changing is proving very effective. That took nearly a decade of negotiation. If either China or the EU are allowed by CPTPP signators to integrate with CPTPP you have the most enormous trade arrangement that excludes the US.
On January 20th this year the MERCASUR arrangement with the EU was signed. This forms the second-largest trading bloc to the CPTPP arrangement. No USA in that one.
We actually forget how powerful the Paris Agreement of 2015 still is. It was that which started China's deep and powerful policy changes towards becoming an electrostate not a petrostate, and a decade later China is ensuring that the entire world will get rid of their internal combustion engines.
We might also forget that the entire Antarctic Treaty system now extends protection into vast areas of the southern oceans. Honestly that's a huge part of the future of all southern nations on earth. Including us.
There's always recalcitrant backsliding governments like our own. But maybe we forget what small and middle powers have already bent the wills of the major powers into binding futures.
This is where I don't get the Greens. A Green party serious about government and a party that was firmly inhabiting the real world could easily have a coherent policy around detaching from the US alliance and working closer with Australia as a regional player – that would appeal to their reflexively anti-American and anti-western constituency – along with a more "buy local" autarkic approach sold around localism and resiliency in an uncertain world. Combined with a big, transformative energy policy/vision to make NZ the world's first all electric nation (thus also meeting our Paris commitments) and for the first time they'd have an attractive, jobs rich economic policy – rather thanjust telling everyone to be a bit poorer and to eat less meat.
Instead, their first instinct appears to be towards anti-modernity, with a certain taste for luddism and culture war distraction.
I don't think the Greens have had a serious take on foreign policy since Kennedy Graham was forced out.
It's a problem repeated all across the wider left: international relations is being treated like some kind of morality play we can use to project our chosen values du jour, rather than a serious business of interests, contingencies, and messy tradeoffs.
Maybe, because we're such a small country and haven't had a truly serious debate about foreign policy in at least the last 40 years, that kind of bullshit magical thinking isn't seen as having much of a real risk.
But I don't know if that's necessarily true anymore.
We do not an American alliance. But Australia does.
And I would have thought that their buy into AUKUS sucked any air out of the room for that approach.
Enzed Greens would be more likely to talk with their partners in Oz about the framework for foreign and defence policy.
I wouldn’t necessarily oppose AUKUS Pillar II.
It’s a relatively affordable way for us to access genuine force-multiplication capabilities and ensure interoperability with partners we already rely on. In particular: electronic warfare/ECM, anti-submarine warfare, and cyber capabilities.
We probably can’t rely on Washington’s internal politics for our security. But that doesn’t mean alignment has no value. Strategic cooperation isn’t the same thing as strategic dependence.
Supporting Australia and the UK through Pillar II also strengthens their ability to support us in return. In our part of the world, that kind of mutual capacity-building matters.
You might not, but the Green Party has and does.
As for government policy (whether National or Labour led), the last thing I would call our involvement in co-operation with others is AUKUS Pillar 2.
AUKUS offends the Chinese, thus it is diplomatically inept to be part of a wider orbit associated with the name/term. I can see why the USA would do it to us, but not why we should agree.
If the mantra is not being noticed when elephants are pec flexing in the mirror and in front of weaker nations, then under the radar is the way to go.
thanks Ad, this is a good point. I hope you do posts on this this year. It's not enough, but it does indeed give us a chance, and it also gives people hope and motivation to change (change is effective). I might do a post on the latter.
The CPTPP of 2018 adjusted the earlier TPP.
Changes the 2017 government wanted.
The UK signed up in 2023.
Will the EU join CPTTP?
AI
Will China join CPTPP?
AI
Maybe a three way consult, within wider WTO reform (I'd re-boot it as ITO sans USA – because of its MFN trade breaches aka tariff wars) might work.
The EU has done FTA's with South Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
India is going from UK and maybe us (Labour should block it) and onto the EU.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgyz1ejw9no
One path is to rebuild the WTO as ITO (MFN rules would exclude the USA).
Another is to add a new UN body a diplomatic Advisory Council (to work around the UNSC veto).
Nations like India, Japan, South Korea and Brazil on it.
Otherwise, the EU, Council of Europe, CIS, OTS, AU, Arab League, ASEAN, South Pacific Forum, OAS, Commonwealth and China
15 vs 15. Only China on both – USA within OAS, France in EU, Russia in CIS, UK in Commonwealth.
A new UN body such as diplomatic Advisory Council is the alternative to the Gaza Peace Board.
A Trump veto power board would be worse than the UNSC – and Fraser said that would not work out well.
You can see multiple results from Prime Minister Carney that show this framework in action.
Firstly he has been the primary force uniting Europe against the United States concerning Greenland, and now today Trump has had to do a big climbdown, both resiling from military invasion and now today from even trying to buy it.
Secondly last week Carney enabled Chinese EV cars to come into Canada en masse, in a staged fashion lowering tariffs of 100% down to very little. While that isn't great for Ontario, it is a true fuck off to Michigan and the US combustion engine industry. The whole re-alignment with China is now very strong.
Thirdly signing the new Security and Defence Partnership in June last year was the big move that undercut the US moves against Demark. That is why the EU and Denmark in particular have been so sure-footed in this.
Fareed Zakaria at CNN has noted that Trump simply isn't denting EU resolve, and in no small part that's due to Carney providing that leadership across the Atlantic. Note he did the first third of the speech in French.
Before everyone's heads explode, we might want to pause before shouting at the US-initiated plan for Gaza that Canada has supported. The plan has very broad support. It's leadership that no one else has generated. The ceasefire is holding, hostages have been sent back, prisoner exchanges have occurred. The next step is the full demilitaristion of Gaza, and then an international stabilisation force goes in, etc etc. Let's see if some more good occurs.
And "let's see if some good occurs" is about the ruling maxim out of Carney's critical speech.
Great work PM Carney.
This may be the most pivotal speech on foreign policy made by any world leader since the 1940s.
I'd love a reporter to ask Luxon what he thought of it.
I have my doubts he would understand what Mark Carney was on about.
What I'll say to you is that ordinary kiwis want to see
me and Nicola flogging off our national capitalus keeping our exports up and returning to growth.I don't know how Trump comes into this because it's all Labour's fault anyway.
Trump does seem to dial back his demands when people strongly stand up to him.
Before everyone's heads explode, we might want to pause before shouting at the US-initiated plan for Gaza that Canada has supported.
Actually, Canada has so far only supported the Trump board of Peace in principle, but it has caveats/demands.
In response to GW, Carney has determined on the NWP being the inland sea of Canada (sea lane talks leverage).
Canada has purchased its own intelligence kit for this purpose, is investing in northward infrastructure and is strengthening its navy.
Otherwise he wants to assist in developing stronger international co-operation (while the USA goes exercising imperial power isolationist).
That might include tech development (and military kit) independent of the USA and China, or what Canada did – buying kit to their specification that they have sovereignty over.
If Carney got rid of the underline, all power to his elbow.