Canada’s Strength Lies in Realism, Not Rhetoric

January 22, 2026

Mark Carney’s soaring nationalism and moral appeals play well abroad — but at home, they drift from Canada’s real challenges.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s address at the Citadelle of Quebec was crafted for history books a tapestry of symbolism, pride, and unity. Standing on ground once soaked with the blood of empire, he invited Canadians to see themselves as heirs to cooperation and moral courage. In his telling, Canada is not merely a country but an idea a living counterpoint to populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism.

Inspiring, yes. But history, economics, and reality tell a more complicated story. What Carney delivered in Quebec was less a policy vision than a political sermon one that glosses over nuance, inflates virtue, and misjudges the geopolitical ground beneath our feet.

Myths of Harmony

Carney’s retelling of the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham as a turning point toward “coexistence” between French and English Canada reads like mythology. Cooperation was not a choice peacefully arrived at but the outcome of centuries of friction, negotiation, and political calculation. The path from conquest to Confederation was marked by deep divisions linguistic, religious, and cultural, from the Durham Report to the Conscription Crises. Canada’s unity was hard-earned and uneven, not the inevitable flowering of mutual goodwill.

By rewriting conflict as cooperation, Carney romanticizes the past at the expense of historical truth. Canada’s greatness has come not from harmony, but from the determination to maintain unity despite constant tension. It is a more difficult and more honest story.

The U.S. and the Illusion of Detachment

Carney’s most defiant moment came in his pointed message to Donald Trump: “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadians.” It’s an applause line that resonates emotionally but economically, it strains belief.

For better or worse, Canada’s prosperity is built on interdependence, not independence. Roughly three-quarters of our exports flow south. Our energy grid, manufacturing supply chains, and financial systems are tightly integrated with the U.S. economy. Our defense strategy relies on binational cooperation through NORAD and NATO. This is not dependence, but partnership one that has underpinned our stability and prosperity for over a century.

Pretending otherwise weakens credibility. Leaders strengthen alliances intelligently; they don’t undermine them theatrically. When Carney casts Canada as morally superior to its most vital ally, it plays well on international stages but risks sounding performative at home.

Noble Ideals, Tangible Shortfalls

Carney’s rhetoric about inclusivity, fairness, and sustainability aligns with Canada’s self-image but ideals cannot substitute for execution. Canadians today face worsening affordability, housing scarcity, and growing productivity gaps. The moral vocabulary of leadership must eventually yield to the mechanics of policy: how to build, hire, innovate, and invest.

Canadians don’t need more “values-based leadership.” They need a government that can translate values into measurable progress that turns slogans into solutions.

The Rules-Based Order and Quiet Power

Carney’s lament for the “death” of the rules-based international order may sound principled, but it ignores Canada’s historic role as a beneficiary of that very system. The postwar order, forged largely by the United States gave Canada safe passage to prosperity, secure markets, and diplomatic influence disproportionate to its size. If that system is crumbling, Canada’s response must be strategic, not rhetorical.

Middle powers exert influence through alliances and competence, not grandstanding. If Carney wants to redefine Canada’s place in the world, he must start by answering the practical question: with what leverage?

A Fortress Without Foundation

Choosing the Quebec Citadelle, a fortress built to defend against an American invasion that never came, as the site of a “Cabinet Planning Forum” was no accident. The symbolism is clear: Canada as independent citadel, morally steadfast against external pressure. But the enduring challenge of leadership is not to reimagine ancient battles, it is to win the present ones. And those battles are economic, institutional, and social, not rhetorical.

Canadians need more than moral clarity. They need functional governance, policies that restore productivity, strengthen public services, and ensure national unity through competence, not ceremony.

The Measure of Leadership

Carney’s speech may have drawn ovations abroad, but at home it exposed a familiar pattern: Canada’s political class mistaking eloquence for effectiveness. A country defined by humility and pragmatism now finds itself led by spectacle and symbolism. There is nothing unpatriotic about expecting more.

True leadership faces reality head-on, it builds trust not through lectures but through delivery. Patriotism, after all, is not performance; it’s perseverance.