Middle power status is earned through strength and credibility, not speeches at Davos
- Canada is no longer a serious middle power. It lacks the military strength, economic independence, and credibility needed to carry real weight internationally.
- Talk about “middle powers,” like Mark Carney’s Davos speech, is rhetoric dressed up as strategy.
- Canada’s approach to China has weakened its own industries and left workers and farmers exposed to geopolitical risk.
- Years of moral lecturing, internal division, and unresolved foreign interference have damaged Canada’s reputation with allies.
- If Canada wants to matter again, it must rebuild its military, strengthen its economy, and stop confusing rhetoric with real power.
In a recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual gathering of global political and business leaders, Prime Minister Mark Carney argued that the old world order had broken down and that cooperation among what he called “middle powers” was necessary to counter the global dominance of imperial powers.
Without naming names, he seemed to imply that China, the U.S. and possibly Russia were imperial powers and that Canada was one of the middle powers.
Lord Conrad Black, in response, poohpoohed the notion of Canada as a middle power. Citing our large economy, vast storehouse of resources and burgeoning population, Black asserted, “We are one of the world’s 10 to 15 most important countries and need not belittle ourselves with unctuous self-deprecation.”
Well, both Carney and Black are wrong. Middle power is a status traditionally associated with countries that exert influence through diplomacy, alliances and international institutions rather than sheer economic or military dominance. It is a status that Canada once held, back in the 1950s and 1960s, but it is something to which we can only aspire in 2026.
Canada is no longer a middle power in any meaningful sense; it is a diminished country whose economic dependence, military neglect and moral posturing have stripped it of real influence.
Yes, we have a large economy and are rich in resources, but these are irrelevant when it comes to being a force for influence in the world. Witness the hollow triumph of Carney’s mission to Beijing: a deal that endangers Canadian electric vehicle and battery production in return for a 10-month pause on the tariffs levied on some canola. China now arguably has a foot in the North American door for its EV industry while pitting Ontario workers against prairie farmers.
Jennie Carignan, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff, has been quoted as saying, “Canada is ready for war.” If it is a war for female sanitary products in men’s washrooms or the appropriately gendered use of pronouns, she may be right. If it comes to defending the world’s longest coastline, our airspace or the Arctic, she is laughably optimistic.
We squandered our moral capital during the Justin Trudeau years. Canada became an object lesson in how not to do things: a torpid economy, regional divisions exacerbated by the fact that the provinces that pay into equalization are milked and scorned by the have-nots, a government that pours contempt on its heroes and history and has described Canada as a genocidal state. The documented foreign interference in our political system by China and serious allegations involving India have been inadequately addressed by Ottawa.
No wonder tyrannies like Iran and Saudi Arabia laugh when we wag our moralizing fingers at them. No wonder we couldn’t win a seat on the United Nations Security Council, losing a bid for a rotating seat in 2020 to Norway and Ireland. No wonder allies may be increasingly reluctant to share sensitive intelligence with us.
If Canada wants to be taken seriously as a middle power again, it has little time and even less room for self-deception. Rebuilding a credible military is not optional; it is foundational. Abandoning the habits of apology and posturing that have hollowed out national confidence is necessary. Restoring an economy strong enough to sustain real influence rather than borrow it is no less important.
Without those changes, Canada will remain what it is now: a country that talks like a middle power but is treated by others as a marginal player.
Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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