Special address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada (2026, Davos)
Opening (translated from French):
Thank you, Larry. It is both a pleasure, and a duty, to be with you tonight in this pivotal (極めて重要な) moment that Canada and the world going through.
Today I will talk about a rupture (破裂) in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.
On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate 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 (主権) and territorial integrity (領土保全) of the various states.
The power of the less power starts with honesty.
Main talk (in English):
It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry (ライバル関係), 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 (格言) of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting (再主張する) 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?
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 (八百屋).
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 (儀式) 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.
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order (ルールに基づく国際秩序). 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.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt (免ずる) themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically (非対称的に). And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour (厳しさ) depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony (覇権), in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes (紛争).
So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric (巧みな言い回し) and reality.
This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.
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 (金融インフラ) as coercion (脅迫), supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit (相互利益) through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination (従属).
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.
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.
But let's be clear eyed about where this leads.
A world of fortresses (分断された世界) will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. And there is another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretense (虚像) of rules and values for the unhindered (妨げられない) pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism (取引主義) will become harder to replicate.
Hegemons cannot continually monetize (収益化する) their relationships.
Allies will diversify (多様化する) to hedge against (回避) uncertainty.
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 (耐える) pressure.
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.
Collective investments in resilience (回復力) 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.
Now Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.
Canadians know that our old comfortable assumptions (想定) that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred (与える) 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”.
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 and recognizing that progress is often incremental (段階的な), that interests diverge (分岐する) , that not every partner will share all of our values.
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, given and given the fluidity of the world at the moment, the risks that this poses and the stakes for what comes next.
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.
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.
And we are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed 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.
We're doing something else. To help solve global problems, we're pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions (連合) 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.
On Arctic sovereignty (北極の主権), we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future.
Our commitment to NATO's Article 5 is unwavering (堅い), 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.
Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.
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.
This is not naive multilateralism (多国間主義), 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.
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, 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.
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 (競争), the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.
We shouldn't allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy (正当性), integrity and rules will remain strong, if we choose to wield them together (協同) – which brings me back to Havel.
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.
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.
And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence (経済的慎重さ), it's a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation (報復).
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 (知識・経験豊富な投資家). 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 (夢見ている).
Canada is a pluralistic (多元的な) 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 (適応). It calls for honesty about the world as it is.
We are taking the sign out of the window. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn (嘆く) it. Nostalgia (追憶) 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 most to gain from genuine cooperation.
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.
マーク・カーニー（Mark Carney）
出身・教育: 1965年カナダ生まれ。ハーバード大学、オックスフォード大学（経済学博士）卒業。
金融界での活躍: ゴールドマン・サックスに13年間勤務。ロンドン、東京、ニューヨーク、トロントで投資銀行業務に従事。
中銀総裁として:
カナダ銀行総裁（2008-2013）: 金融危機に際し、利下げと将来の金利指針を示し、カナダ経済を安定させた手腕が称賛された。
イングランド銀行総裁（2013-2020）: 非英国人として初めて就任。英国のEU離脱（ブレグジット）に伴う金融混乱を沈静化し、「ロックスター」と評された。
国際機関: 国連の気候変動対策・金融特使（2020～）を務め、金融の脱炭素化を主導。
政界進出: 2025年1月、カナダ自由党の党首選に出馬。約86%の支持を獲得し、トルドー首相の後継として党首に選出、3月に首相に就任。
歴史上の多くの政権が証明しているように、「パン（生活）」がないところに「剣（軍事）」を維持し続けることはできないというのが、多くの専門家や国民が抱く一致した懸念と言えます。
『円安でもっと助かっているのが、外為特会っていうのがあるんですが、これの運用、今ホクホク状態です』
『だから円高がいいのか円安がいいのか分からない。これは総理が口にすべきことじゃないけれども、為替が変動しても強い日本の経済構造を私はつくりたい』 By 高市総理
マーク・カーニーやカナダのことを心配する前に、自分の足元を見たほうがマシだよ。
