Mark Carney has travelled to Davos dozens of times over his career, usually as a banker or economic policymaker operating within the global elite consensus. This year, however, his appearance was fundamentally different. Speaking for the first time as Canada’s prime minister, Carney used the Davos platform not to reassure markets or echo the language of global capital, but to deliver a sharp critique of what he described as a failing hegemonic order. Though he avoided naming it directly, his target was unmistakable: the United States under Donald Trump. Casting himself as a voice for so-called middle powers, Carney argued that the old global order was broken and that a new alignment was necessary.
Yet this dramatic pivot glossed over an uncomfortable truth. Canada was not a neutral bystander during the construction of the very US-led order Carney now condemns. For decades, Ottawa prospered as Washington’s closest ally, lending political, military and moral legitimacy to American hegemony. In backing US-dominated institutions, alliances and wars, Canada helped weaken the very middle powers it now claims to represent. Far from being a passive neighbour, Canada functioned as America’s cultural and strategic twin, benefiting from and reinforcing a world order that became increasingly tilted.
The closeness of the two countries was so entrenched that outsiders often struggled to distinguish between them. A long-standing joke in the United States asked what Canada produced that no other country did, with the punchline being “Canadians”, a reflection of how deeply Canada’s economy and trade were integrated with, and dependent on, the US. That dependence is now being reassessed, not because of moral awakening alone, but because the ground beneath it has shifted.
Carney’s recalibration stems from the realisation that under Trump, the US relationship has become overtly transactional. Washington has weaponised tariffs, trade and leverage with little regard for past goodwill. Canada felt this shock directly as sweeping tariffs were imposed to force compliance on issues such as border security, migration and fentanyl trafficking. By mid-2025, tariffs on most non-energy Canadian imports had surged dramatically, while Trump repeatedly mocked Canadian sovereignty by floating the idea of Canada as America’s “51st state”. The comforting myth of a benevolent northern partnership collapsed almost overnight.
These tensions were amplified by Trump’s posture toward Europe, particularly his threats over Greenland and his willingness to pressure NATO allies with tariffs and even hints of military coercion. For Canada, these developments shattered any lingering belief that decades of loyalty guaranteed protection. Despite its membership in the G7, Ottawa was forced to confront the reality that, in practical terms, it occupies the vulnerable space of a middle power.
Carney opened his Davos address by declaring that the world now lives in an era of great power rivalry and that the rules-based order is fading. While this assessment is difficult to dispute, what stood out was what he left unsaid. The post-Second World War order did not emerge organically; it was actively designed, enforced and defended by the United States and its closest allies. Canada was not merely adjacent to this process—it was embedded within it.
From the late 1940s onward, Canada was a core pillar of the Western bloc. It was a founding member of the United Nations, a key architect of NATO, and a major contributor to Western military strategy during the Cold War. Canadian troops were stationed for decades in Western Europe, its air defence was integrated with the US through NORAD, and it fought alongside American forces in Korea. Even when Canada projected an image of independence or mediation, such as during the Vietnam War, it rejected the Non-Aligned Movement’s critique of US interventionism and remained firmly anchored to Washington’s worldview.
The system Canada helped uphold was framed as universal and rules-based, but in practice it consistently privileged Western power. Newly decolonised nations often experienced this order not as stabilising, but as coercive. Canada played a central role in legitimising global economic institutions born at Bretton Woods, institutions that shaped the economic trajectories of the Global South through conditional lending and structural adjustment. While the US led, Canada helped stabilise and defend these arrangements, even as they locked many countries into cycles of debt and dependency.
Carney acknowledged that American hegemony provided certain public goods, such as secure sea lanes and financial stability, but this is only part of the picture. The same order enabled regime-change wars, selective application of international law, and the marginalisation of non-aligned voices. Canada consistently stood with the US through these contradictions, lending a softer image to a system underpinned by American hard power. Even Canada’s celebrated peacekeeping tradition often served to sanitise a deeply unequal global structure.
When Carney now argues that the old bargain no longer works, the question arises: for whom did it ever work? For much of the Global South, the bargain was never equitable. Non-aligned countries were squeezed, sanctioned, destabilised or overthrown when they asserted autonomy. Canada’s alignment with Washington meant quiet complicity in this architecture, reinforced through intelligence-sharing alliances and diplomatic support that rarely challenged the fundamentals of American dominance.
Carney’s call for middle powers to unite offers an attractive vision in an era of US-China rivalry, but it also feels like a convenient late discovery. Where was this solidarity when the Non-Aligned Movement was being systematically weakened? Canada did not stand with those countries. It chose prosperity and security through alignment with the US, a choice that brought tangible benefits but also helped hollow out the very space Canada now seeks to occupy.
By declaring that Canada is finally taking the “sign out of the window”, Carney suggests a moral break from the past. Yet credibility hinges on consistency. If US politics shift again after Trump, will Ottawa return to its old habits? The deeper issue is not whether the old order is broken, but whether a country that helped build and sustain it can convincingly lead its replacement. The question Carney leaves unanswered is whether Canada possesses not just the rhetoric, but the moral authority, to do so.
