If speeches could act
A memorable week in Davos.
Updated with better Poilievre response.
TL;dr: While remarkable, Mark Carney’s Davos speech was not surprising. Neither was Donald Trump’s — I explain why. I also make the case that while things appear very grim, and we may indeed be in a new world order (whatever that means), even monsters can come back to the light, and the United States of America, as a country, is no monster. Just a great but flawed nation with a shit show of a federal administration. And finally, because I can’t resist dissing Pierre Poilievre, I… diss Pierre Poilievre some more. He didn’t do himself any favours this week.
It was, indeed, a remarkable speech that the prime minister, Mark Carney, delivered in Davos earlier this week. The full video is above. It’s well worth the half hour.
I heard from a lot of you, very much including right-leaning folks, when it first started circulating online. Most of you found it to be a great speech. I heard Chantal Hébert, whose opinion I always take seriously, calling it magisterial on a French radio station.
I’m not sure I’d go quite that far but I also don’t want to bicker. I am simply noting that, when compared to whatever it was Donald Trump delivered on the same stage the next day, it was… refreshing for being clear, principled and intelligent.
What it wasn’t, though, is new. People who follow these things have heard Mark Carney say a lot of those words during the last year. That’s not to knock it, simply to say that Mark Carney ran on being the guy he’s been busy being since he got the mandate. He is, oddly enough, fulfilling his electoral promise. Imagine that!
No, you’re right, he’s not fulfilling every promise. But on the one big issue of being the best possible person to deal with [gestures widely] whatever is happening south of the border, it would be churlish to deny that he’s kinda nailing it. Unless you can think of someone else who’d do a better job?
That said, I am not prepared to declare the old world order dead and truly gone. For sure, Trump is causing deep, serious and lasting damage to … everyone except maybe China and Russia. But I refuse to believe it’s permanent.
Earlier this week I took my teens to see 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and I found it very à propos in the current context. Shit is real and things are grim. But there is also hope because even in the heart of the worst villain there is humanity and kindness. We just need to figure out the way to guide it back to the surface the way (SPOILER ALERT) the character wonderfully played by Ralph Fiennes cures the Alpha. Like, for instance, by voting for someone other than MAGA in November. That’d be such a great start.
Donald Trump’s looong and discombobulated tirade was shocking to many people who aren’t used to his performances — if that’s the right word. As someone who’s been observing him for … a long time, I think it’s fair to say he’s harder to follow than before, but he’s always been all over the place. What’s different now is his energy levels, which are much lower than they used to be, his confusion (mixing up Greenland with Iceland is not something he would have done 10 years ago, at least not multiple times in the same speech), and the way his words are slurred. He’s starting to sound … sleepy. Ironic, isn’t it.
But you want to know about Pierre Poilievre.
His office circulated a statement calling Carney’s trip to Davos an “unneeded indulgence.” As far as, you know, substantive criticism, he retweeted his MP Michelle Rempel Garner’s substack post. [Update: he subsequently had his own statement.]
Which, I must say, hit the right tone. You don’t have to be a partisan to see her criticism of the speech as clear and principled.
“Words do matter, especially in moments of crisis like the one Canada presently finds itself in. But to protect our country, Canadians cannot allow themselves to believe that words alone are enough. Action is needed, too,” she wrote.
I would encourage you to go read the whole thing and make up your own mind about it. Personally I found this paragraph to be the most impressive, and something I think Conservatives would do well to exploit.
Mr. Carney must understand that, contrary to his speech’s assertion that nostalgia is not a path forward, Canadians have every right to long for what life was like ten years ago when rents were affordable, food was plentiful and accessible, streets were safe, and healthcare was more readily available. Restoring past hope that is glaringly absent in the present must be the end goal of our collective way forward.
Carney’s speech was excellent, and speeches are indeed very important especially when they are followed by actions. But if I were the opposition I’d hit the nails that Rempel Garner identified in her critique instead of bitching that the prime minister travels too much.