Canada's Mark Carney at Davos: Middle Powers Must Step Up
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"Middle powers must act together because
if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu."
For full text of Mark Carney's speech: see here and here.
Canada's prime minister Mark Carney’s speech focused on changes in the global order and the limits of existing institutions.
He argued that economic integration and multilateral rules no longer guarantee stability or fairness.
The speech called for middle powers to adjust their strategies and cooperate more closely.
He delivered the speech at World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, on 20Jan2026. He received a standing ovation for his speech.
Quotable Quotes from his speech >
"Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu."
"Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition."
"You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."
"We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false."
"The old order is not coming back. Nostalgia is not a strategy."
"We are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength."
"The powerful have their power. But we have something too—the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together."
Highlights from his speech >
Carney declared that the world is currently experiencing a rupture rather than a transition.
Mark Carney declared world’s old rules-based order is experiencing a rupture, not a smooth transition, and it will not simply reset itself.
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under the rules-based international order, benefiting from its institutions, principles and predictability.
That stability allowed them to pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection. At the same time, it was understood the system was imperfect and applied unevenly.
The strongest states often exempted themselves, and trade and legal rules were enforced asymmetrically. Despite this, American hegemony provided key public goods, including security, open trade routes and financial stability.
However, the rules-based international order was a pleasant fiction and it had officially ended.
He used Václav Havel’s greengrocer metaphor (see the end of the blog for details) to argue that countries must stop performing rituals they know to be false.
Trade weaponisation: He stated that great powers are now using trade, tariffs, and supply chains as weapons of subordination.
Traditional multilateral institutions (the WTO, the UN and the COP) have weakened and cannot be relied on alone.
A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. If great powers pursue only their interests, transactional gains become harder to replicate.
Allies will diversify and build options to protect their sovereignty. Collective investment in resilience is cheaper and more effective than each nation acting alone.
Middle powers must adapt, choosing ambition over simply building higher walls.
He warned that middle powers must act together because if they are not at the table, they are on the menu.
Middle powers still have the capacity to shape a fairer global order based on shared values.
Now Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.
He rejected the idea that smaller nations should simply go along to get along or hope that compliance buys safety.
He introduced the concept of variable geometry to build different coalitions for different global issues.
New coalitions must be built pragmatically, issue by issue, rather than through rigid alliances.
Countries need to build strategic autonomy at home while diversifying economic and diplomatic ties abroad.
Middle powers like Canada can no longer rely on big powers to guarantee their security or prosperity.
He announced that Canada is diversifying its security by joining European defense procurement and signing twelve new trade deals.
Nostalgia for the previous global order is not a strategy for navigating today’s realities.
He reaffirmed Canada’s firm support for Greenland's sovereignty and its unique right to determine its own future.
Middle powers should act collectively because those not shaping the system risk being exploited by it.
Carney argues Canada is a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but..
He concluded that while hegemons have hard power, middle powers have the capacity to name reality and build a new order.
The speech was a call to face geopolitical realities honestly and adapt rather than cling to the past.
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Full quote for Carney's speech on greengrocer metaphor:
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless, and in it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?
And his answer began with a greengrocer.
Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: ‘Workers of the world unite’. He doesn't believe it, no-one does, but he places a sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along.
And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persist – not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
Havel called this “living within a lie”.
The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source.
When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.
Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.
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