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The Davos Doctrine: A house of cards

The Davos Doctrine: A house of cards

The past week has demonstrated that the so-called Carney doctrine, for all its rhetorical elegance, may be a house of cards.

Consider the sequence of events.

Last Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that Canada supported the United States in its strikes against Iran.

Two days later, in New Delhi, standing in for the prime minister — who had made himself unavailable to the media — Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand struck a noticeably different tone. She spoke of diplomacy, avoided the question of the legality of the strikes, and emphasized that Canada would not participate in military operations.

Tuesday, the prime minister returned to the spotlight, clarifying that Canada’s support had been given “reluctantly” and in a “limited” way —  insisting it was not a “blank cheque” while calling on all parties to respect international law.

A day later, the position shifted again. Speaking in Canberra on Wednesday, Mr. Carney said Canada could not categorically rule out military participation should allies be threatened.

Five days. Four shifting positions. Each one subtly recalibrating the last.

The consequences of this shifting narrative are now being felt inside the government itself. On Friday, Liberal MPs held a caucus call with Minister Anand after several privately expressed concerns about the prime minister’s initial statement and its silence on international law.

How quickly the shine has come off the Davos doctrine.

Only weeks ago, Mr. Carney’s speech in Davos was widely praised as a bold attempt to redefine Canada’s place in a fractured world — and a roadmap for middle powers to follow. It not only won him international applause but also supercharged his political fortunes at home.

Unfortunately for Mr. Carney, the events of the past week suggest that the framework may be far more flimsy than originally advertised.

In that address, Mr. Carney argued that the old rules-based international order was giving way to a harsher era of great-power rivalry. Middle powers, he said, would have to adapt.

His answer was what he called “values-based realism.”

Canada, he suggested, would accept the realities of geopolitics while remaining anchored in core principles: respect for sovereignty, consistent standards for allies and adversaries, and limits on the use of force except within international law.

It was an elegant formulation — realism without cynicism, pragmatism without abandoning principles.

But the value of policies and doctrines should not be measured by the elegance of their framing. They should be assessed by the clarity of the light they cast on the pathways they are meant to illuminate.

And the events of the past week suggest that the Davos framework sheds very little light on the decisions it is supposed to guide.

In the wake of the Iran strikes, Canada endorsed the use of force by an ally without explaining how that action aligned with the principles invoked only weeks earlier. As political pressure mounted, the government adjusted its position — first emphasizing diplomacy, then stressing legal constraints, then raising the possibility of military support.

In Davos, Mr. Carney described Canada’s approach as one of “variable geometry” –– coalitions formed according to circumstances, interests and evolving realities.

The events of the past week suggest that for Mr. Carney, this variable geometry extends well beyond alliances.

The evidence is there. Confronted with its first real test, the Carney framework bent as events unfolded and tensions changed.

Defenders of the Davos doctrine will argue that this is simply realism at work. They will say that middle powers must navigate a world defined by shifting alliances and unpredictable crises.

This is true. And there is no doubt that the stakes are high.

But realism is a moving target. It shifts with circumstances, alliances and political cycles. Untethered from bedrock principles, it becomes little more than a justification for improvisation — a polite way of saying that policy will be adjusted as events dictate.

And when a country’s foreign policy becomes a series of never-ending recalibrations in response to shifting perceptions of the real world, the framework meant to guide decisions collapses.

Like a house of cards.

Mark Carney’s Coalition Numbers Don’t Add Up

Mark Carney’s Coalition Numbers Don’t Add Up

It was often said of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that her greatest political asset was her ability to count. To count votes, certainly — but more importantly, to count what allows a coalition to endure over time: sensitivities, idiosyncrasies, and invisible red lines.

Mark Carney holds a PhD in economics. He knows how to count. Yet, eight months after his government’s election, it remains unclear whether he has mastered the kind of political arithmetic required to govern a minority government in a federation as diverse as Canada’s.

Since his election last April, Carney and his government have embarked on a sweeping overhaul of major federal policies, marked by limited consultation and transparency.

Virtually nothing has been spared: international trade, internal trade, environmental policy, national defence, climate policy, immigration. All of it has been pursued under the cover of a political consensus that hangs by a single thread — Donald Trump.

While decisiveness is essential when governments face challenges requiring immediate responses, strategic restraint are just as crucial when the issues at stake are structural in nature.

Unfortunately, restraint has been largely absent. Between visits to Paris, London, Doha and Beijing, Mr. Carney has appeared intent not only on rebuilding the foundations of Canada’s major public policies, but also on reshaping the Liberal Party’s governing coalition.

For decades — from Pierre Trudeau to Justin Trudeau — the backbone of that coalition has been formed by Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and Ontario (particularly the GTA and its suburbs).

Since his election, however, Mark Carney has devoted disproportionate attention to the grievances of Alberta and Saskatchewan while relegating to the sidelines Quebec’s concerns over pipeline development and carbon emission reductions and Ontario’s interests in the health of its automotive sector.

The issue is not whether Alberta and Saskatchewan have legitimate claims tied to the development of their natural resources. They unquestionably do. What is striking is the contrast between the urgency with which those claims are addressed and the relative indifference shown toward the concerns of other provinces that remain central to the Liberal Party’s traditional electoral coalition.

On paper, the Carney government appears to have gained stability since the election. In Parliament, it has survived its first major political tests, including confidence votes on the Speech from the Throne and its budget. Before the holidays, two Conservative MPs — one from Nova Scotia and one from the Greater Toronto Area — crossed the floor to sit as Liberals.

On the ground, however, the picture may be quite different. The Liberals and Conservatives remain neck and neck in the polls. And while it is still too early to speak of entrenched trends, early signs of erosion are already visible in the Liberals’ traditional strongholds.

This is true in Quebec, where Liberal support has declined by roughly five points since the election; in Ontario, where the drop approaches six points; and in Atlantic Canada, where the decline exceeds five points since April. Notably, Liberal support has remained essentially unchanged in the Prairies and in Alberta.

A closer look at the electoral map helps clarify the magnitude of the political risk facing Mr. Carney and his government.

In the last election, the Liberals lost seven ridings in Alberta and Saskatchewan by margins of a few thousand votes. By contrast, they won 26 seats in Ontario and Quebec by margins of less than 5,000 votes. Even a marginal weakening of Liberal support in Ontario, Quebec, or Atlantic Canada would be enough to shift dozens of seats into Conservative or Bloc Québécois hands.

The chart below illustrates the asymmetric electoral reality facing the Liberal Party: while close losses in the West are relatively few, dozens of seats in Ontario and Quebec rest on razor-thin margins.

Mark Carney and the Liberals returned to power in the shadow of Donald Trump. They benefited from voter anxiety and a reflex of solidarity among Canadians confronted with American political chaos. That consent was real — but it was circumstantial. It did not constitute a mandate to upend the country’s industrial, economic, and political foundations.

In a federation, knowing how to count is not simply a matter of tallying seats or securing markets. It requires acknowledging and accounting for what may not be immediately visible: diverse values, regional diffrerences and sensitivities, and thresholds of acceptability.

Mark Carney is a smart man. What he lacks is the lived political experience — and the humility that comes with it — needed to understand how electoral coalitions are built, and how they unravel. Canadian political history is clear: coalitions do not always collapse with a crash. More often, they erode — slowly. And when the numbers no longer add up, it is usually too late to start counting again.