21/01/2026
🇨🇦 Full Transcript — Mark Carney at WEF Davos 2026
“Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path”
Prime Minister Mark Carney — Davos, Switzerland — January 20, 2026 �
Thank you, Larry.
It’s a pleasure — and a duty — to be with you at this turning point for Canada and for the world.
Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.
But I also submit to you that other countries, particularly middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values — respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states.
The power of the less powerful begins with honesty.
Every day we are 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.
…We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false… The strongest exempted themselves when convenient, trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and international law applied with varying rigour depending on identity.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and dispute-resolution frameworks.
But 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 laid bare the risks of extreme global integration… Great powers now use economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when it becomes the source of your subordination.
In a world of great power rivalry, middle powers have a choice: compete for favour or combine to create a third path with impact. Middle powers must act together — because if you are not at the table, you're on the menu.
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.
Canada has what the world wants: energy, critical minerals, educated people, sophisticated capital, and values others aspire to. We are stable, pluralistic, committed to sustainability, and reliable partners in a world that is anything but.
We understand that this rupture 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 it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.
From the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. That is Canada’s path — and a path open to any country willing to take it with us.
Thank you very much.
📌 Strong / Advanced Vocabulary & Meanings
Here’s a list of key advanced words and phrases from the speech that are especially useful for understanding and discussion — with clear meanings:
Rupture
→ sudden break, serious damage, something that stops working normally
World order
→ global system, how countries work together
Geopolitics
→ international politics, power between countries
Great powers
→ very strong countries, powerful nations
Constraints
→ limits, restrictions
Middle powers
→ medium-strength countries, not superpowers
Rules-based order
→ system with agreed rules, fair global rules
Rivalry
→ competition, struggle to be stronger
Hegemony
→ dominance, control by one powerful country
Public goods
→ shared benefits, services for everyone
Asymmetrically
→ unfairly, not equally
Integration
→ connection, joining together
Leverage
→ advantage, power to influence
Coercion
→ forcing, pressure, threats
Subordination
→ being controlled, lower position
Supply chains
→ systems of production and delivery
Vulnerabilities
→ weaknesses, weak points
Legitimacy
→ acceptance, being seen as right or fair
Sovereignty
→ independence, self-rule
Territorial integrity
→ protected borders, keeping land intact
Pluralistic
→ diverse, mixed society
Sustainability
→ long-term balance, not harming the future
Nostalgia
→ missing the past, longing for old times
Fracture
→ crack, break, division
Strategic autonomy
→ independent decision-making
Pragmatic
→ practical, realistic
Principled
→ moral, value-based
