Havel would have demanded more from Mark Carney. Canadians should too.
On Carney's Davos speech - words are important, but action is what matters now.
Today Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum which rightly named the hard realities of a fractured geopolitical system, and the urgent need for middle powers like Canada to step up with resolve and realism.
Words do matter, especially in moments of crisis like the one Canada presently finds itself in. But to protect our country, Canadians cannot allow themselves to believe that words alone are enough. Action is needed, too.
But action was conspicuously lacking from Mr. Carney’s speech.
Ironically, and to that point, Mr. Carney invoked the words of Václav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless”. Mr. Carney cited Havel’s greengrocer, who refused to display the regime’s propaganda sign, to argue that Canada and other middle powers must reject superpower incursions on our sovereignty. Yet for the past decade it is his own Liberal government that has asked every Canadian to hang a similar sign in their windows: one that argued that everything was fine, and that ignored a decade of Liberal policies leaving us with an unprepared military, underdeveloped natural resources, and seemingly untouchable internal trade barriers.
And so, Prime Minister Carney’s speech must not be lauded as a victory in and of itself. Now he must do something much more difficult: deliver concrete, practical details on how Canada’s ruling political class will summon the necessary resolve, resources, and urgency to break through a decade of inertia and complacency, smash through taboos, and build a nation that is truly strong, self-reliant, and independent.
Mark Carney cannot simply return to Parliament and expect, as he has for the past year, that re-announcing projects or creating new bureaucracies will suffice to fix Canada’s woefully inadequate military, underdeveloped natural resources, and entrenched internal trade barriers. Small ball and tinkering is not going to cut it.
He must come prepared to tell Canadians exactly when shovels will hit the ground on pipelines and mining projects that will provide economic freedom, good paying jobs, and energy security for Canadians. He must deliver concrete plans on how he will dismantle economy-stifling oligopolies and mountains of regulatory red tape. He must deliver clear strategies for securing stable trade agreements. And he must also boldly reject a decade of post-nationalism and proudly reassert a strong Canadian national identity.
And above all, for Canada to truly be sovereign, he must rapidly rebuild Canada’s military. Hard power is real power. As of today, on this front, Mr. Carney has made a lot of announcements but delivered very little. This must change. Equipment must be delivered and troops must be recruited and trained.
All of this will demand real political courage, specifically, the resolve to say no to a particular brand of political ideology which emanated from within his own party to devolve Canada into a vulnerable, sclerotic, decadent nation from which talent, intellectual property, and financial capital continue to flee.
Mr. Carney must understand that, contrary to his speech’s assertion that nostalgia is not a path forward, Canadians have every right to long for what life was like ten years ago when rents were affordable, food was plentiful and accessible, streets were safe, and healthcare was more readily available. Restoring past hope that is glaringly absent in the present must be the end goal of our collective way forward.
That’s because Canada’s domestic pressures did not begin with the current American administration. They grew over years of Liberal policy choices long before recent global shifts made them worse. If Mr. Carney is serious about reasserting Canada’s sovereignty, he must plainly acknowledge this truth which was of his government’s own making. Without admitting that Canadians were already overburdened by housing shortages, rising food costs, strained public services, and rapid population growth outpacing infrastructure, he cannot even begin address the root causes that have eroded our fiscal capacity and social fabric.
The most patriotic Canadian action His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition can take right now is to hold Prime Minister Carney to account for delivering real results, while advancing our own clear, concrete measures to lift Canada out of a decade of deepening dependency. As we have been doing under Pierre Poilievre, we will demand timelines and proof of every promise he makes, while offering practical policies to rebuild fiscal strength, secure energy independence, strengthen defence, control immigration sustainably, eliminate internal trade barriers, and restore public safety.
This is our duty, and we will not fail nor apologize for seeing it through.
Havel’s essay which Carney invoked today warned that power endures through collective pretense and that true strength begins when leaders move beyond naming reality to acting on it decisively.
Said differently, words alone cannot shield us. Action must follow, and it must start now.
Over to you, Mr. Carney. Canada’s Conservatives will be making sure you aren’t allowed to invoke that essay in vain.
Our country depends on it.