Carney Is the Crisis Manager Canada Needs
When I was researching a profile of Mark Carney for Maclean’s last year, I was struck by the PM’s extraordinary accomplishments and also by his arrogance: he was known for his high-handed responses to journalists, and colleagues complained about testy exchanges behind closed doors that left them with bruised feelings.
After watching his speech in Davos on Tuesday, it occurred to me that his lack of humility is understandable, because he knew what the rest of us did not. That he would be able to do what he said he would—lead Canada, and maybe the world. “If the U.S. no longer wants to lead, Canada will,” he said during the campaign. That is what he did in Davos on Tuesday, rallying the world’s economic, media and political elite to co-operate to resist the increasingly erratic demands of the Americans.
The speech, which he apparently wrote himself, was a masterful piece of persuasion, calm and carefully reasoned. He started with an anecdote from a 1978 essay by Václav Havel—then a Czech dissident, later the first post-communist leader of the Czech Republic—about a grocer hanging a sign in his shop window reading “Workers of the world unite.” This sign in the window, in all the windows, meant that Czechs were “living within a lie.” Carney connected the horrors of Soviet communism with current American imperialism—a message that landed with great force in a room full of Europeans astonished and frightened by the bizarre demands of the American president.
In a way, Carney has been preparing for that moment for his whole life. Since he was a nerdy, hockey-loving Edmonton teenager hitting the books, he’s had his nose to the grindstone, mastering numbers but also, eventually, communications and power dynamics.
As the central banker for Canada and then the United Kingdom, Carney became comfortable giving speeches at the World Economic Forum and wherever else Davos people gathered.
While I was writing my profile, I made myself watch his speeches and panel appearances—which I found dull, since they mostly had to do with the important but dreary world of bank regulation. It was striking, though, that the other economists, bankers and financial journalists were not bored when he spoke. They hung on every word. Carney was for years the most interesting person in every room at Davos, because he was the smartest person in every room, with deeper insight into the world financial system than literally anyone else alive.
When he entered politics—a demanding career shift to take at 60—I wasn’t certain that those skills would be transferable. Could he connect with people? Could he hide his arrogance? In other circumstances, it might not have worked, but in the fearful atmosphere that prevailed after the second election of Donald Trump, Carney was the calm and experienced crisis manager that Canadians needed.
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At Davos, he warned the rest of the world against the “performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination,” showed backbone at a time when the Europeans were being forced to demonstrate that they have spines. The impact was without precedent in Canadian history, says Raymond Blake, author of Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity. “I cannot think of a speech from any other prime minister that had such an impact,” he told me on Wednesday. “Those are rare opportunities to capture international attention, and Carney knew that. He did not disappoint.”
He did disappoint Donald Trump, who responded Wednesday by saying, with typical imperial narcissism, that “Canada lives because of the United States.” Canadians may come to regret Carney’s leadership if Trump rips up CUSMA and destroys our economy, but do we want to live on our knees?
In the near future, Carney can expect a political boost, which will likely translate, after Pierre Poilievre survives his leadership review, in a few more floor crossings, giving him the majority he wants. Poilievre, who has been jammed ever since Trump was re-elected, is struggling to keep the pro-Trump and anti-Trump wings of his base happy, which is a problem he will be dealing with so long as Trump is in office.
In the long run, the triumphant speech will not ensure Carney will be a successful prime minister. Lester Pearson, who filled Canadian hearts with pride when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, eventually found that laurels on the world stage did not translate to long-term political success. Everything depends on whether Carney can produce economic results for Canadians. For the moment, it still seems clear that he’s the best-placed person to try.