Oh, Canada! Land of the Unhypocritical Hypocrits?

PSU. This one's for you.

Davos and the World Economic Forum. Who would have thought that a global-economic-affairs-oriented event could possibly provide that kind of action and generate such talked-about excitement? Comic Con, eat your heart out!

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s WEF Davos speech certainly made ripples, large ones, and, compared to any speech ever made by Trump, it was for all the right reasons.

Some called it “the most important speech in recent history,” “momentous,” and “the best speech [they’d] heard in the last decades,” along with other, similar exultations.

And that speech did make me proud to be Canadian.
But, mostly, it did so for the wrong reasons. Fundamentally, there’s much about that speech that I found offensive.

Why?

Well, on the one hand, re the “pride” part, because Canada stepped up and stood out and led the way, and others followed suit, German Chancellor Merz, amongst others, offering a somewhat similar view—declaring the Old World Order over—and one has to wonder how much of his speech was rewritten in response to Carney’s speech from two days prior, especially given the fact that Merz cited Carney directly, to then add that he “shares that view.”

•     •     •

This reminded me of an event back in my Air Cadet days.
One night, in one of the two classes we had to attend at every Friday session, the whole senior group I was in clearly wasn’t in the mood to follow the instructor for some reason, all of us being in serious goof-off mode, throwing paper balls and pulling other shenanigans behind the teacher’s back in between all sorts of jokes in reaction to anything the frustrated instructor offered.
The squadron Captain and other top-ranking officers had been standing outside the door for several minutes, watching us through the window; no one had noticed her presence until she suddenly flung the door open.
Uh-oh!
The Captain had us stand at attention.
The major, annual parade and promotion ceremony was just weeks away, and, so, standing directly in front of each, she asked, “Per the behaviour I just witnessed, do you actually believe you’ve worked hard and deserve a promotion?”
All eight that preceded me replied with the soft, subdued, “No, ma'am," tone of a child being scolded. Her response to each signalled that that is what appeared to be the satisfactory answer.
Then came my turn. I solidly believed that I had earned a promotion, and I wasn’t going to let anything jeopardize that.
I offered a firm, “Yes, ma’am.”
The whole room went eerily quiet; stunned silence reverberating off the walls. 
A glint of surprise in her eyes; she repeated the question. I gulped, hesitated, then offered the same reply.
“You actually believe that you deserve a promotion?” she asked with a dubious, sarcastic tone.
Being committed at this point, the fear of not gaining a promotion overcoming my fear of whatever outcome my insolence was to potentially receive, again, I instantly answered in the affirmative.
She took a step back and stated for all, “Finally, there’s one smart person in the group with true leadership skills.”
The two that followed me also offered a “yes,” which she commented on, condescendingly stating, “Of course, now you say ‘yes’.”
My “yes” had created quite a stir, which all held in until she’d left, the lot still referencing that moment months later.

From that group, only two of us received a major promotion that year; I was one of them.

The year after, I quit the Air Cadets, as I had had a top honour and all I'd worked for unfairly taken away from me for having told a civilian officer “You piss me off” in response to an order I disagreed with… but that’s another story.

•     •     •

Back to Carney: Along the same lines, in September of 2025, his government announced Canada's formal recognition of the State of Palestine; Canada became the first G7 nation to do so. Others followed suit.

Leadership, the type that’s unflinchingly willing to bravely offer an honest-albeit-symbolic middle-finger in dignified defiance of forced forms and expectations when these fall outside the values that define one’s moral identity.
Being a rebel, with a respectable cause. 
In this case, it concerns shared Canadian values, and displaying the courage to do the right thing rather than the authoritarian-pleasing ones is definitely an act that affirms our true identity. 
And no, it’s not one of those “We’re #1!” U.S.-type things. Being the first matters, but only because it stamps an impassioned honesty on convictions centred around a communally-understood definition of ‘moral good’, and having the strength and courage to stand against the odds in order to uphold those values if needed.

Referring back to Carney’s Václav Havel analogy about “Workers of the world unite” signs: through that speech and the recognition of Palestine—which had initially been proposed by the UK, who hadn’t acted on it—Carney hadn’t just refused to put up the customary sign, he twice put up a new one that said: “This, this is pure BS!”

However, though I appreciate the point Carney was making, using that parable, for me, is vexing, as he presented it without adding the slightest sidenote in regard to the very real class struggle it represents—even outside of communist-related interpretations—this fight being intensely relevant at this precise point in history, precisely because of Capitalism and all it represents.

For those who are well-versed in the real-reality state of things and what truly matters, the level of reality-acknowledging truth and commitment that they've long-hoped to hear never came, Carney’s entire framing encasing nothing but the Western-centric economics’ side, and nothing about the inhumanity inherent to that world order.

Which makes sense, I guess, given the fact that the speech was delivered at the West's uber-Capitalist World Economic Forum’s annual deal-making, power-mongering, wealth-celebrating shindig (and wild sex parties???). So, self-awareness, at that level, is out of the question, I suppose…

After all, although Carney did express seeing value in the Occupy Wall Street protests and, in a 2016 lecture, he may have issued a stern warning that “staggering wealth inequalities” carried societal risks, he is in fact a central banker, to the core.
He’s a technocrat, not a politician, the product of all the right establishment-prep-schools, his experience gained through all the Western-serving, Capitalism-and-elitist-servicing entities. He’s even been a part of the WEF’s Foundation Board and, in 2011, 2012, and 2019, he’s also attended the Bilderberg Group’s annual meetings.

As such, he’s a neoliberalist-minded goon, his particular school of thought merely offering a better shade of ‘good’ on the amount of soul that one still possesses, and, therefore, he’s definitely not a man who is likely to ever lead a serious revolt of any kind. This certainly wasn't a 'revolutionary' speech, it was simply a 'proper' speech. And I can't even imagine him getting anywhere close to riling up the Davos crowd to a pitchfork-level of action against imperialism-guided greed, this being the type of revolt that’s now become necessary.

Nonetheless, I firmly believe that Canada made the right choice, Carney being the right candidate at the right time; I trust that he's "actively [taking] on the world as it is" and leading Canada toward "the world we wish to be," and not deeper into the one that's heading in the opposite direction.

To wit, what he announced is the course that the whole of Canada—minus some Albertans—had wholly accepted, eagerly embarking on this path several months ago; the stated reality already deeply absorbed nationally, Canadians have cheered it on, gladly doing their part to get on that winding road to avoid the 51 interstate.

Indeed, "Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture."

Since taking office, Carney has carefully been moving the decoupling pieces into place, which is why he was willing to make that speech; he’s not announcing what’s to come, he’s stating what is. 

Unfortunately, given the venue, the scope of that vision limits itself to economic peers, so that:

"...the question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality – we must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious." (CP24 Canada)

Therefore, at Davos, the sign that Carney did in fact put up actually said, “Middle-powers of the world unite.”
The irony. And several layers of hypocrisy... 

His speech broadcasted an organizational restructuring in order to keep functioning under key aspects of the very illusion that's being denounced; it selfishly suggested an incremental step toward a truly globally-beneficial, non-bank-centric world while stating absolutely nothing to affirm that this is the destination.   

Hence, his speech was more of a “screw you!” to the U.S. and in no way was it a deeply self-aware “Sorry to much of the globe” offered in true recognition of all that is wrong with what no longer works, I mean, besides the fact that it no longer works for us, economically speaking.

And, sadly, what has much of the Western world cheering on that speech limits itself to the confines of the “Screw you, Trump!” they heard. 

In many ways, laying bare any degree of this imperialistically-crafted sordid reality is a great thing, but how to overlook the disheartening level of hypocrisy that Carney so bluntly expressed, namely, paraphrasing: Canada now cares about injustice, because it no longer works for us.

Which is why, at the start, I mentioned “it did so for the wrong reasons.”
Had we, simply because it’s the right thing to do, decided to stop opportunistically playing along with the supremacist and xenophobically-motivated unfair rules of that world order at a time when we weren’t its emperor’s stated target, then that would have been the real Canadian thing to do. Doing it now not only smacks of hypocrisy, it frames the act within a reactionary nationalist mindset that easily discards any focus on the humanity-significant parts that suffer under the wider Western-level imperialism we actively aid in aid of U.S. imperialism, prompting a competitive mode rather than a truly peace-driven one. As such, the fight is now aimed at preserving our ways through new forms and not on changing our ways because they’re bad for a big part of the world.

People like Carney call it  “value-based realism.”

I say it still qualifies as idiotic tribalism within an imperial world view that seeks to pit a new, money-minded 'independent' collective against "hegemons" (US) and "hyper-scalers" (China).

 •     •     •

Per se, ‘it’s no longer working’ isn’t news to many, especially to all those individuals and nations for whom “it” never worked in their favour.

Along with all the other shifts that this reality has stimulated across the globe, the tacit knowledge that this is so is why the U.S. is currently pushed into a nostalgic yearning for a 50s-styled White World, while the far more progressive Canada is willingly diving headlong into a new world in order to secure its old values, the ones they saw themselves losing the more intertwined with the U.S. they became.

For the Davos set, it's all about Western-benefiting trade and GDP and quarterly growth, the all seen through the same Capitalistic-tinted lenses, the same game now played with different players. 

One cringe moment that made this ultra-clear: 

"On critical minerals, we’re forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply." 

Another particularly jarring moment was:

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

What?! For whom?! Other than Western elites, I'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to argue that, for each of those, the opposite isn't what's true for most.
Is Carney that out of touch or was he simply offering a polite, placating nod to the Emperor?
Nations provided those things when the money rolled in, but the mindset that's the cause, and product, of U.S. hegemony is what's stripped all the real value out of these as its imperialist modes and ways infiltrated nations.

•     •     •

Washington and its right-wing media minions hit a Canadian nerve. As I like to say: Canadians, we’re not nationalists, until we are, then, watch out! We don’t crassly make love to our flag; we love our flag, but in a polite, respectful manner.

The insults mostly roll off our backs and the rhetoric itself isn’t all that troublesome, it’s the genuine threat that shines through that drives our nationalistically-expressed reaction, Trump merely awakening a conscious awareness of the reality of what is, and how much it now weighs on Canada’s soul as we are collectively clearly seeing the U.S. for the cautionary-tale it is in regard to where we’re heading, for, thank goodness—annoyingly so—Maple-Trump Poilievre forcing his American-tribal style of politics on Canada is what injected the crucial reality-inducing elements that drove the plot home.

It’s not the statements, it’s what simmers underneath them, because, within that World Order, money talks and imperialists coerce; it’s the sincere, underlying sense of vulnerability and helplessness we instinctively feel, for what we’ve been accustomed to witnessing, that which we tut-tutted over and wagged a finger at when performed elsewhere, occasionally hoping that placards would affect real change on the horrendous acts of neoliberalist power and greed which most came to simply accept as normal and out of our control, well, now, the mentality behind it all has been turned against us, as a nation. And everything up to now has taught us that, if our elites were to actually see a positive wealth benefit, they’d easily sell us south.
And that scares the hell out of Canadians.
For, given all the ways by which U.S. capitalism has already leaked into all of our affairs, if that were to happen, we know we’d be in for a hopelessly difficult fight, waking up one morning and realizing that still having the Canadian flag and name no longer means being Canadian, and, so, as long as our government clearly establishes its willingness to fight for our true sovereignty, the non-abstract prospect of a military invasion by the U.S. provides a clear fight that’s far less scary.

For we all seek something better whilst being deeply grateful for what we have, and we understand that becoming a U.S. state implies severely debilitating steps backwards.

Because deep down, Canadians are cognizant of the US-led West’s evil imperial ways, though they may, unconsciously or not, reject any meaningful comprehension of Canada’s own collaboration toward growing that empire and keeping that world working.

Lacking this awareness is what has fools begging to become the 51st state.

With that awareness, one implicitly grasps that dog-eat-dog U.S. capitalism sees no borders, neoliberalism takes tons of prisoners, neocons know no bounds, and Wall Street shows no mercy, while the economic organisations and financial institutions and banks that serve the billionaire class are the empire’s most frightful weapons of war. And through these and the corporations they justify, they’ve already invaded too many aspects of our daily lives, Canada progressively becoming indistinguishable from the U.S. in upsetting ways, and barely progressing.

For now, though we have a hard time putting our finger on what makes us so different, we know we still are, and in ways that truly matter. Hence why Canadians traveling abroad feel safer if they prominently display a Canadian flag. Which is also why many United Staters sow a Canadian flag onto their backpacks or jackets.
Throughout Mexico and Central America, whenever anyone assumes I’m an “Americano” or they call me “gringo,” I feel sharply insulted, consumed by an intense need to rectify matters, and instantly reply with: “No, soy Canadiense.”
Invariably, all suddenly become far friendlier.

But, nonetheless, no matter how happy we are to be Canadian, most are unhappy with the world, as we're keenly aware that the World Order we've helped solidify isn't working, making us gradually less Canadian.

•     •     •

The empire flexed its economic muscles and made us its vassal state, though, unlike many others, we and the White West were well compensated for our compliant service, and for our non-ideologically-challenging loyalty.

By complicitly “putting up that sign” for too many decades, we’d become U.S. puppets. Too willing. Too readily. Increasingly so. In too many ways that I’ve plainly been able to categorize as profoundly anti-Canadian since the second-half of Brian Mulroney’s reign (early 90s).

How does one manage to just go along with the dictates of that ‘Old World Order’ without, to some disturbing degree, adhering to, and believing in, its hegemonic ideals, and with the supremacist fundamentals of their brutal imperialist plans?

The Western-way of doing things entails doing whatever is needed to re-direct wealth toward the West, particularly, toward Washington. Our leaders and elites haven't all been too dumb to acknowledge this fact, they've just been too greedy to truly care about it.

The major turn for me—when it finally sunk in just how severely dickheaded we were becoming— after having watched Brian Mulroney sell big hunks of our finances to Washington and big chunks of our soul to the evil Reagan-Thatcher duo, was our participation in NATO’s US-led and corporation-serving efforts to decolonize the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, especially our heavy, dedicated involvement in the 24-Mar-1999 to 10-Jun-1999 78-day bombing campaign during the Kosovo war.

In light of that 'controversial and difficult' decision, former PM Jean Chretien may have attempted to redress the course through his refusal to partake in Bush Jr.’s WMD-deluded and criminal Iraq war, but many Canadian industries and reconstruction contractors made a killing there, not to mention that Canadians were outraged to learn that SNC-Lavalin—our version of a Haliburton—had been, specifically for that conflict, contracted to manufacture “300-500 million bullets for the U.S. military through its subsidiary SNC-TEC.”  (Canadian Foreign Policy Institute)

Since then, I haven't been able to unsee how real eager we've become to play along with the flexible rules and immoral moves, willingly accepting the "fiction" while the media told us lies so the fiction's fiction could become reality, including all the clear hand-up-ass acts of puppeteering we anxiously enjoyed bending over for, but in a polite, careful, and shy way.

The painful truth is: The West's supremacy-driven ideology, justified through manufactured paranoia and fear, is what we chose to operate under, period.

If one needs solid proof of Canada having gladly embraced imperialist ways, then one only needs to examine our mining industry, and the behaviour of our mining firms overseas.

•     •     •

Unless we rethink “Capitalism”, not just “trade deals” and “payment systems,” the road ahead, per the loosely-defined, consensually-proposed “new status quo”, offers nothing more than the illusion of a lofty and benevolent ideal in order to render acceptance of “the world as it is” part popularly acceptable.

For, since the “world as it ought to be” isn’t what we’re to strive for, the over-producing, consumerist world as it is still translates into the 'rich get richer' while everyone else makes the hard sacrifices.

So, at its most basic, are we just running away from the U.S.’ exponentially volatile dollar? Or are we actually taking a good, globally-respectable stand?

How much have we changed, and how much are we still willing to accept and continue playing along with?

Unless we severely diminish the power of billionaires, the underlying problem remains the same.

•     •     •

Workers of the World, do unite.