I've spent too much time online reading too many bad takes from too many accounts, both real and fake. Instead of yelling at my screen, as is my habit, I've decided to post responses to three of the bad takes on the speech that Carney made yesterday at the WEF.
1. Carney’s speech was good but risky
What added risk does Canada face after Carney’s speech? After years of obedient service, Canada has been repeatedly hit with tariffs and Trump regularly talks about making Canada the 51st state. What other threat could he make at this point? Are the Americans going to start bombing us? Would not giving a speech prevent a bombing?
I think that Carney decided that Canada’s damned one way or another. In which case, he might as well go out and do what he wants because caution does not guarantee safety. Trump has shown over and over that he can't be satisfied or placated.
Canada is up against a wall. We exist next to a belligerent failing empire that is acting extremely erratically. If Carney thought he could ensure good relations by placating Trump, that is what he would have done. Canada is good at playing pet, it’s our country’s tradition. The problem is that Trump prefers to kick his pets.
The impossibility of truly placating Trump frees Canada’s hand even as it places the country in greater danger. The Americans cannot threaten people into compliance if they continuously threaten people who are in fact complying. The point of compliance is to avoid threats. If you comply and are still threatened, at some point, you’ll look around and think, why bother?
2. Carney admitted the rules-based order was a lie
This take seems to a be combination of projection and a lack of nuance. Carney actually said, “We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false.” Since the so-called "rules-based order" was a system created by humans, it seems unlikely that it could ever have been completely true. The comparison to the Soviet Union is apt. The Soviet Union really did exist; then, one day, it didn’t.
A group of humans believed in the rules-based order and their belief made the order real. The order was flawed and, Carney admits, its rules did not apply evenly. Carney's admission that the order was unequal should not be read as a moral critique.
Carney’s speech was highly practical and demonstrated an understanding of real politik. He did not say that Canada was wrong to participate in the order because, for a time, it worked out for Canadians like him. He is not refuting the order because it was bad for the Global South or because it was hypocritical. Instead, he stated that the order no longer works for people like him, thus he is not going to put up the sign anymore.
3. Carney is some sort of anti-system socialist
This is the by far the worst take. Carney is a 60-year-old rich white man who went to both Harvard and Oxford and who worked for Goldman Sachs and as a central banker for two Anglosphere countries. He is now the prime minister of Canada. A person cannot achieve a CV like that if they are an anti-system socialist. Carney is the walking embodiment of the system. That is why the speech was such an earthquake: a rich white man in suit whose life has been devoted to upholding the system loudly proclaimed that the system that we knew is dead and that we must make changes.
I spent January 1 wrapped in an unfamiliar feeling of relief. It’s 2026 and we’re still alive. This feeling was short-lived.
I woke on January 2 to the familiar feeling of dread. It’s 2026 and we’re still alive.
I was doing some stretching when my partner told me about the US attacks on Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro by the US government. Oh god, I thought, it’s 2026 and we’re still alive but for how long?
In a farcical replay of post-9/11 and in memory of my father, I went shopping and finally bought an unreasonably expensive article of clothing that I had been desiring for some time. Since I stopped working full-time, I’ve barely done any shopping. My last purchase of note was some cotton tank tops that come in a pack of three.
Recently, a pyjama top ripped in half while I was wearing it. The fabric gave out while I was in bed. I repaired two ripped elbows in quick session on a sweater that is too small. With the threat of war hanging over me, I figured that I might as well buy something that fits.
The decision was made quickly. I heard about the attack on Venezuela. My mind turned to the cardigan. Now I’m wearing the cardigan. The salesperson likely thought I was nuts: I was in and out of the store in 10 minutes.
Since the attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration has been making noises about attacking Cuba and Greenland. Canada is on the list too. Carney’s statement was insipid. Macron and Starmer’s statements were worse. Who knows how long we’ll be spending Canadian dollars. A woman was kidnapped live on air and another woman has just been shot in the face by ICE. Things are bad. So bad that even the layoff feels inconsequential? Who knows how long we’ll be alive.
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I wrote about my impulse to go shopping but didn’t post it because I hadn’t fully worked out my feelings. In the mean time, things kept getting worse. Trump has now set his sights firmly on Greenland and is threatening tariffs on the EU until a “deal” is reached. It’s in this context that Carney visited and left Beijing.
First off, I don’t like Carney. He’s too neoliberal, right wing and smug for my taste. He is, of course, complicit in the ongoing genocide.
I appreciate Carney’s ability to project competence and calm, although it’s an ability aided and abetted by his whiteness, maleness and age.
I still think that he sold the country a bill of goods. No one voted for turning the public service over to the Department of National Defence or spending untold millions on military hardware from the country that keeps threatening to invade us. I find it repulsive that he made his friend minister for AI. All this, as the French say, sur un fond de crise economique pour les plus démunis.
That said, it’s good news that we’re getting Chinese EVs. Everything I’ve read about them suggests that they are far superior to what we can currently get in Canada. It’s not clear why the whole country should have to suffer antediluvian autos just because an ever-shrinking number of Ontarians are employed making them.
Ontarians should keep in mind two things:
The announcement of warming relations with China has sparked fury among the far-right Canadians who are mostly white and mostly men. They would prefer that we prostrate ourselves before the Orange one even if doing so risks our national dignity and sovereignty. I’m sure when there is an eventual invasion, certain pasty men will be first in line to work with the invaders.
Those men continue to obscure the facts of what the US has done to Canada. The tariffs on Chinese EVs are an American policy, which we followed because following America is what Canada has traditionally done.
Canada and China’s relationship soured because Canada was doing the US’s bidding. Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei princess, and held her for ages because of the Americans. China retaliated with tariffs on Canadian agricultural products, such as canola, and by detaining two Canadians. At no point were Canadians angry at Americans for any of this, not even when the Americans decided to drop their charges against Meng and let her go. Canadian loyalty to American foreign policy was rewarded with tariffs and threats of invasion.
But I guess for some white men, what matters most is to be led by a fellow white man. They will follow that white man to their death because the idea that someone who isn’t white could be powerful enough to require some deference on their part is too harrowing to be worthy of consideration.
The reduction of tariffs on Chinese EVs has caused a lot of teeth gnashing in the political class in Ontario. Both Stiles and Ford accuse Carney of selling out Ontario autoworkers. There is currently much ado about how allowing China to sell 49,000 EVs will destroy auto jobs.
The supposed qualities of those jobs – stable, high-paying and requiring little formal education – stand in for everything we have already lost. Whether the golden age of standard employment was as great as those who have never experienced it imagine it to be is not really important here. The nostalgia elicited by the idea of these jobs is real. The auto job is the reification of the idea of a golden past when well-paying jobs were plentiful, the cost of living was affordable and Canada was white.
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Note: The title to this entry is taken from Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum (the infamous WEF). The speech is astonishing and well worth listening to regardless of your opinion of Carney or the WEF (I like neither). In it, Carney explicitly pronounces the end of the rules-based order, more than a year after Trudeau bluescreened when asked about the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) warrant to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant. These are, unfortunately for us, extremely interesting times.