// LEADERS' VIEWS
MARK CARNEY, PRIME MINISTER, CANADA
Leveraging energy strength, democratic values and strategic alliances, Canada is thriving H ow can a middle power, like Canada, … deal with the situation where the rules-based order is eroding, great-power rivalry is
this time is we recognise what’s going on. This is not a transition; this is a rupture. This is a sharp change in a short period of time driven by a variety of factors. We have a determination to rise up and meet this … Our response to this is to build strength at home, to build resilience by diversifying abroad and pursue a variable geography to defend our values and pursue our interests. … We’ve cut taxes on incomes and capital gains. We have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade. We have passed landmark legislation to fast-track literally hundreds of billions of dollars of projects in energy, in AI, in critical minerals, in new trade corridors. We are doubling our defence spending by 2030. Our core capabilities with respect to defence, AI, quantum, cyber, critical minerals provide unique opportunities for dual-use and economic benefit, and we intend to fully exploit those. We are diversifying our trading relationships and our security partnerships. We signed the most comprehensive agreement with the European Union from a non – European Union member, the Economic and Security Partnership with the EU … We are on track to be a full member of SAFE, the European defence arrangement, which allows us to diversify and accelerate our defence procurement … we agreed a comprehensive approach within the context of USMCA [US-Mexico-Canada Agreement], … with Mexico to deepen our bilateral trading relationships. And we are pursuing more aggressive strategies throughout Asia… [In] the coalition of the willing for Ukraine, we are the largest contributor on a per-capita basis to Ukraine … When you think about our Arctic sovereignty, we are cooperating very closely with the Nordic-Baltic Eight for physical protection up there, economic development, and also defending NATO’s western flank. We are active with likeminded parties in efforts to promote a two-state solution and Middle East peace… [We], out of the G7, are forming a buyers’ club for critical minerals so that the world can diversify away from Chinese dominance from them. So it’s not just the supply, but it’s having that secure access … so these can be developed. Transcription of Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture, Council for Foreign Relations, 22 September 2025
superpower. That is going to become increasingly evident. Eighty-five percent of our energy is clean. We’re one of the world’s largest LNG [liquefied natural gas] exporters, one of the largest reserves of oil and gas. We measure additions to our grid in 10 gigawatt chunks … We are [in the] top five in ten of the world’s most important critical minerals. Forty percent of the world’s listed mining companies are in Canada … We are a leading developer of AI [artificial intelligence], and our research universities are some of the biggest producers in volume of AI, computing and quantum talent in the world … We have capital. Our pension funds are some of if not the most sophisticated infrastructure investors in the world … And we have a government that still has fiscal capacity to act decisively at a moment when governments need to act decisively. Now, the second reason … is we have values to which much of the world … still aspires. We’re a pluralistic society that works. Our cities are amongst the most diverse in the world. [Our] public square is loud, diverse and free. By the nature of our federation, we have to practise collaboration and partnership. And it’s a country that is still committed to sustainability. [The] third reason … we can thrive in
intensifying and authoritarian models are hardening? … We prospered under the old system. And … we were able to pursue a values-based foreign policy, based on, or anchored on a rules-based multilateral trading system, an open global financial system. We had collective security anchored in NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] … We had enviable geography. It gave us privileged access to the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, and it distanced us from the major state and non-state threats. We also subscribed to an expectation that … non-market authoritarian countries would converge over time through engagement to free markets, open societies and even democratic values. And this meant … that our engagement with those countries could be justified by the expectation of progress. In fact, the very engagement helped with that progress, and [the] alignment of values was merely delayed, not compromised. So a few things have changed. Certainly, that convergence of values has proved elusive. The economic strategy of the United States has clearly changed, from the support for the multilateral system to a more transactional and managed bilateral trade and investment approach. Global power is moving … from American hegemony to great power rivalry. And technological change is shrinking that geographic advantage that we had and expanding the fields of conflict from the virtual to the extraterrestrial. All of this is reducing … the effectiveness of our multilateral institutions from the WTO [World Trade Organization] to the UN on which middle powers like Canada have greatly relied… We think we can thrive … in … the system that’s evolving, for three reasons. The first is we have what the world wants … We are an energy
21 globalgovernanceproject.org
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting