Carney's Davos speech was a sales pitch

Good speeches are rare these days, great speeches even rarer. Given all the noise, anxiety and Trumpian terror currently filling our social spheres, for a strong message of leadership to break through and potently inspire, well it's something to witness. Historic times call for historic speeches, and Carney's Davos speech was indeed historic.

As a communications strategist with two decades of experience in nonpartisan messaging, narrative-building, storytelling, fact-checking and managing flows of information, I can appreciate a great speech. A lot goes into such a thing; talented communications teams are the backbone of effective politics and policy-making. If your message doesn't resonate, your audience won't hear you.

Carney's message resonated. It was skillfully written – the prose carried a steady, firm rhythm with paced beats and well-delivered tone. It was crafted by a master communicator, and no doubt passed through many rounds of surgical edits. Every word and phrase was selected with intention and precision to convey the message as potently as possible.

It was a direct answer to the existential threat felt by the entire Western world, and in that way it was easily embraced by audiences beyond Davos attendees. These are intense and unprecedented times, no one knows what comes next. Canadians feel this tension acutely, as our sovereignty is threatened by malignant powers just South of our very long shared border.

Many Canadians heard the rallying power of the speech and applied it to their own anxieties around annexation and our country's threatened sovereignty. Their faith in Carney as a leader grew tenfold as they thought to themselves, "we'll be okay. He's going to take care of us". I can't fault anyone for it, it feels good to be able to breathe. But that wasn't the message I heard.

What I heard, and then read, and then watched, was a message that signalled the coming of something very difficult for you and me.

I'm going to take you through his speech via the lens of communications, but before I do, I want to offer you my empathy, because this will not be a comfortable read. Many fundamental beliefs we've held onto for so long about our political and social systems are cracking before our eyes. It's exhausting. I'm not trying to pile on, or to shame anyone who isn't seeing what I'm seeing. Our social spheres are so full of noise right now, and many of us are struggling to get through the day. It's winter in Canada. Neofascism is rising. Everything's expensive. Life is hard. We need a rallying cry, we need adults in the room.

Sturdy yourself. You're brave. You're capable of processing this and weighing it according to what your gut feels is true. And we need true right now, not easy. Not fantasy.

Now let's examine the speech through the lens of communications:

First, we must understand his audience. Knowing an audience is everything when it comes to an effective message. Carney's audience – the Davos audience – was comprised of political leaders, business executives, corporate and civil society representatives, and media; aka the powers of capital; the people who own and run corporations, who run the markets, who lobby on behalf of corporations, and the people who amplify the messages of those corporations. This context is important as we re-parse his words.

It's also important to note that his corporate allies already knew the details of the "new order" he alluded to, which is why the speech has an allusive feel and uses a refined, less-accessible vernacular, while the rallying tone of the performance enchants the common public. And while the speech doesn't lay out "the plan", it emphasises its benefits and ends with a clear call to action.

Here we go:

Thank you, Larry. It is both a pleasure, and a duty, to be with you tonight in this pivotal moment that Canada and the world (is) going through.

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and beginning of a harsh reality, where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraints.

Here let's absorb the phrase, "where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraints".

He's referring to increasing vulnerabilities within the globalised capitalist model, the dominant threat being the U.S. regime (obviously, right?).

So, let's review what globalism is: a capitalist process begat by the Industrial Revolution wherein capital models blur geopolitical borders and stretch across multiple national economies. The movement increases international economic interdependency through reducing corporate regulations, to allow greater flow of money and investments across borders. It's also heavily focused on investments in technology and communications.

The movement has been criticized for accelerating environmental degradation, propelling labour exploitation, increasing wealth inequality and concentrations of capital, causing chronic geosocial displacements, and causing ongoing erosion of local economies. Notable critics of globalism are Naomi Klein, Joseph Stiglitz, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky.

So in these two phrases, Carney is both acknowledging the rogue "great powers" operating within globalism (we assume the U.S., but also Russia, China, Iran, etc), and "the end of a pleasant fiction", ie: that globalism was a good thing that worked.

This opener had me thinking, "yes, fuck globalisation! It's killing the planet and it created Trump! Just like the critics said it would!". God help me I don't know why I actually thought Carney might be anti-globalism all of a sudden, I was really trying to be hopeful.

He goes on,

But I will say, on the other hand, that other countries, especially middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.

The power of the less powerful starts with honesty.

Okay so. He's saying it isn't globalisation's fault. It's the Great Power bullies and everyone has to rally against them to set up a new and better type of globalism focused on liberal values.

I guess that's not the worst thing... like if it's that or be destroyed I guess that's the better option. But, are we really just going to try globalist capitalism again? I mean if we're being "honest" and talking about building a "new order" can we not be a bit more adventurous? What about expanding social services? Renewable energy? Better wages and affordability? What about putting more regulations in place to protect consumers?

But he's talking about globalist capitalism. Okay, so who are "the less"? Smaller governments and corporations. Of course. Not the trod upon, etc. Got it. And this isn't about the trod upon anyway right? That's a whole other thing. This is about capital sovereignty and national security. Got it.

It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.

And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.

Well, it won’t.

So, what are our options?

Okay so he's basically saying "these fucking bullies amiright? We don't have to put up with this, and passivity will make it worse..."

And he's talking about options now! Hey, here we go!

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?

Hmm kinda weird to pull in communism here... we just met with China...

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 persists – 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.”

I'm sorry... okay so, here he's taking a direct dig at Karl Marx's phrase, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains". That phrase is considered the essence of Marx's communist ideology, it's his call to solidarity among the working class. Also important to note Marx is the Capitalist Anti-Christ.

So now he's tied a line between communism and the working class, and he's saying anyone who ever believed in "workers of the world unite" was living a lie. So, unionizers, union workers, and advocates for the blue collar class – he's comparing them to communists, and disregarding them.

This is the part I started to feel quite icky.

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.

I know he's saying "it's time for small governments and corporations to stop pretending the old rules matter", but this also could easily be read as "it's time for everyone to stop pretending the working class matters"... do you see that? That's how skilled communication works. One message, two meanings, one overt, and one a lil bit of a "fuck the commies/working class" dogwhistle to other capitalists. Imbuing the phrase with both of those meanings wasn't accidental. When you're writing a Davos speech for the Prime Minister, meaning is considered and vetted on a granular level. And in a room full of capitalists, it's a clever wink of solidarity to his audience.

On we go.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

Basically saying, "globalism had good rules before..."

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

..."but still kind of sucked because some bent the rules and some got special privileges..."

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 frameworks for resolving disputes.

..."this was great for the U.S. and as long as we all pretended it worked it was good for us too..."

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

..."so we pretended we cared about fairness and regulations, even when most weren't being fair or following regulations...

..this no longer works, what's happening is worst-case."

Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

..."the past twenty years have been shit. Globalism turned out shit. And now we're getting wrecked by nations that aren't us."

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

..."this isn't fair and it stinks."

The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied – the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving, are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions – that they must develop greater strategic autonomy, in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains.

..."the international agencies we pretended worked but mostly didn't now really don't work. So now everyone is peacing out to do their own thing..."

And this impulse is understandable. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.

..."I get that..."

But let’s be clear-eyed about where this leads.

A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. And there is another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.

..."but if we ditch globalism we'll all be weaker. And if bullies still do their own thing, it will be even harder to interact with each other."

Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.

..."the bullies are taking our money..."

Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.

... "if we're really friends you'll listen up..."

They’ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

..."our sovereignty's strength is more important than rules right now..."

This room knows this is classic risk management. Risk management comes at a price, but that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty can also be shared.

..."and yeah we all love risk management. But it's expensive to protect yourself alone, we should team up..."

Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum. And the question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality – we must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious.

"if we invest collectively it'll be cheaper and easier. Seriously we have to do this. We can isolate ourselves or do something cooler..."

Now, Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.

..."fyi this was my idea..."

Canadians know that our old comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security – that assumption is no longer valid. And our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland, has termed “value-based realism.”

(Worth noting Stubb sold icebreakers to the U.S. right after this*) ..."Canadian capitalists know that our old borders and alliances are no longer valid. So this other thing is super pragmatic..."

Or, to put another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic – principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force, except when consistent with the UN Charter, and respect for human rights, and pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.

"We're going to do this very carefully, and the rules will be very clear. We know not every investor will want to do all the liberal stuff, but we'll try our best..."

So, we’re engaging broadly, strategically with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.

We are calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values, and we’re prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, and given the fluidity of the world at the moment, the risks that this poses and the stakes for what comes next.

"We're matching best buyers with best regions, based on best projected outcomes."

And we are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength.

We are building that strength at home.

..."Here are some of Canada's best investment features..."

Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, on capital gains and business investment. We have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade. We are fast tracking a trillion dollars of investments in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors and beyond. We’re doubling our defence spending by the end of this decade, and we’re doing so in ways that build our domestic industries.

..."low taxes, low regulations, no barriers. Lots of AI and minerals. Good military that spurs industrial production..."

And we are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed to a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. The past few days, we’ve concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We’re negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.

..."well-diversified packages..."

And we’re doing something else. To help solve global problems, we’re pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. So, on Ukraine, we’re a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.

Hmmm variable geometry? This means "allows for changes and shape", so, flexible levels of cooperation among investors/buyers.

On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.

..."buyers and investors who support Greenland and Denmark will be considered first..."

Our commitment to NATO’s Article 5 is unwavering, so we’re working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic Gate, to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through Canada’s unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft and boots on the ground, boots on the ice.

..."NATO is non-negotiable..."

Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.

..."we're serious about Greenland."

On plurilateral trade, we’re championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we’re forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we’re cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we won’t ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.

..."lots of strong portfolios. We're serious about AI, and we really don't want to be absorbed by American tech or feral oligarchs..."

This is not naive multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It’s building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.

In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations.

What it’s doing is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture, on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.

..."we promise this isn't naive, and we're not just doing the same thing over again. We just think smaller coalitions less overburdened by large issues can act more efficiently together."

Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.

But I’d also say that great powers can afford for now to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not.

... "and if we don't do this we're too vulnerable to the Great Powers. They'll eat us."

But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.

This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.

..."negotiating with the Great Powers is a bad idea. They'll subordinate us. We're better as a coalition of capital."

We shouldn’t 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 them together – which brings me back to Havel.

..."I promise this will work if we work together, guys..."

What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth?

First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is – a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.

It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction, but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.

..."can we say what's real here? Globalism's rules don't work for us anymore. The other guys are taking over and we're pretending they're not."

It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the old order to be restored, it means creating institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion – that’s building a strong domestic economy. It should be every government’s immediate priority.

..."you all need to grow up."

And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence, it’s a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

..."and if we all own these diverse economies, we'll be nicer to each other because we'll all promise not to be assholes."

So Canada. Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. In other words, we have capital, talent, we also have a government with immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but. A partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

And we have something else. We have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.

"GET YOUR CANADA FRESH CANADA HERE."

We are taking the sign out of the window. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and have most to gain from genuine co-operation.

"Let's leave the past in the past. Let's divvy up these assets fair and square and start a new globalism where we decide what happens and the Great Powers can't wreck us."

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.

That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us. Thank you very much.

..."those other guys are powerful, but we can do this super cool thing. Canada is DEFINITELY doing this cool new thing, and you should too."

[STANDING OVATION, MEDIA BLASTS, PUNDIT PRAISES ETC]

By the time I got to the end of writing this, my heart was pounding in my throat. This message was written by a master, in the language of Capitalism. And I think they're going to privatize the country.

This is why Carney has no beef with Danielle Smith or any other premiers. Why separation rhetoric has been building steadily. Why they can all sit so cheerily in a room together. They know.

Carney's government is also in the process of pushing through Bill-C15, which would allow corporations to be exempt from most Canadian laws. This is real. They're doing it.

And this aligns definitively with the mission of the accelerationist movement, which would break larger nations into small "technocratically ruled" regions, which you should learn about now, because it has everything to do with this surge of investments in AI.

Carney was speaking to capitalists, not Canadians.

Watch the speech again. Read it again.

I'm sorry. I hate this. I didn't mean to find this dark and difficult thing. My intuition told me to look more closely so I did. A part of me doesn't even want to share it, but I also can't not.

I reviewed it with a lens as nonpartisan as possible. I have no personal agenda beyond sharing what I found.

Things are going to start changing very quickly – it will be confusing and there will be a lot of propaganda attempting to sedate us or entertain us. Surveillance will be pervasive to maintain order. It will feel like fascism. Please prepare.

--

Update, read part II to this post here.

Part III is here.