Carney's Davos speech: the argument for middle-power cooperation

We held our Annual General Meeting on February 21 at Collingwood Neighbourhood House. Unofficial results for the riding executive:

• Russil Wvong - chair

• Kory Fletcher - organization chair

• Imtiaz Asin - director at large

• Devin Clemens - director at large

• Ram Krishnaswamy - director at large

• Jonathan Ling - director at large

• Ossman Nabi - director at large

• Sam Wyatt - director at large

If you couldn’t be there, but you’d like to be involved with the riding, please let me know (russilwvong@gmail.com). We’re happy to have people join, and we can still appoint people to vacant positions on the executive.

Housing Happy Hour. We hold a regular monthly event on the third Tuesday of the month. It’s an informal get-together for anyone who’s interested in why housing is so scarce and expensive, and what we should do about it. If you’re interested in attending, even if you’re not sure you’ll make it, please register, so that we can let the pub know how many people are coming.

When: Tuesday March 17, 7 to 9 pm
Where: Portland Craft, 3835 Main Street (at 23rd)
Register

Pints and Politics. This is an event for Liberals across the Lower Mainland.

When: Thursday March 19, 5 to 8 pm
Where: Canadian Brewhouse & Grill, 4755 McClelland Rd, Richmond
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Phone banking in Vancouver Kingsway. We’ll be calling people in the riding and listening to what’s on their minds. If you’d like to volunteer, please register today!

When: Sunday March 22, 11 am to 1 pm
Where: Zoom
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Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos really struck a chord. Transcript. Commentary by Paul Wells.

Carney describes the current situation:

The power of the less powerful begins with honesty.

… 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.

More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.

How former allies will respond to the “might makes right” approach of the great powers:

And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from “transactionalism” become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty— sovereignty which was once grounded in rules—but which will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This classic risk management comes at a price. But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress.

Canada’s response:

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

This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. And it 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 you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not.