The world is experiencing a rupture in the established world order, moving from a "present fiction" of a rules-based system to a "harsh reality" of unconstrained great power geopolitics. Middle powers like Canada, however, are not powerless and can actively shape a new order based on their values.
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I'm I'm going to start in uh French and
then I'll switch back to English. Uh me Larry.
Larry.
>> Thank you, Larry.
>> It is both a pleasure and a duty
to be with you tonight
in this pivotal moment that Canada and
the world going through.
Today I will talk about a rupture in the
world order.
The end of a present fiction and the
beginning of a harsh reality where
geopolitics where the large main power
geopolitics is submitted to no limits,
no constraints.
On the other hand, I would like to uh
tell you that the other countries,
especially intermediate powers like
Canada, are not powerless.
They have the capacity to build a new
order that encompasses our values
such as respect for human rights,
sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty,
sovereignty,
and territorial integrity of the various states.
states.
The power of the less power
>> starts with honesty.
>> It seems that every day we're reminded
that we live in an era of great power
rivalry, that the rules-based order is
fading, that the strong can do what they
can and the weak must suffer what they
must. And this apherimism of Thusidities
is presented as inevitable as the
natural logic of international relations
reasserting itself.
And faced with this logic,
there is a strong tendency for countries
to go along to get along, to accommodate,
accommodate,
to avoid trouble, to hope that
compliance will buy safety.
Well, it won't.
So what are our options?
In 1978, the Czech dissident Vaslav
Havl, later president,
wrote an essay called the power of the
powerless. And in it, he asked a simple
question. How did the communist system
sustain itself?
And his answer began with a green
grosser. Every morning, the shopkeeper
places a sign in his window. Workers of
the world unite. He doesn't believe it.
No one does. But he places the sign
anyway to avoid trouble, to signal
compliance, to get along. And because
every shopkeeper on every street does
the same, the system persists.
Not through violence alone, but through
the participation of ordinary people in
rituals they privately know to be false.
Havl called this living within a lie.
The system's power comes not from its
truth, but from everyone's willingness
to perform as if it were true.
And its fragility comes from the same
source. When even one person stops
performing, when the green grosser
removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.
crack.
Friends, it is time for companies and
countries to take their signs down.
for decades, countries like Canada
prospered under what we called the
rules-based international order. We
joined its institutions. We praised its
principles. We benefited from its predictability.
predictability.
And because of that, we could pursue
values-based foreign policies under its protection.
protection.
We knew the story of the international
rulesbased order was partially false.
That the strongest would exempt
themselves when convenient. That trade
rules were enforced s asymmetrically.
And we knew that international law
applied with varying rigor depending on
the identity of the accused or the victim.
victim.
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.
disputes.
So we placed the sign in the window. We
participated in the rituals and we
largely avoided calling out the gaps
between rhetoric and reality.
This bargain no longer works. Let me be
direct. We are in the midst of a
rupture, not a transition.
Over the past two decades, a series of
crises in finance, health, energy, and
geopolitics have laid bare the risks of
extreme global integration. But more
recently, great powers have begun using
economic integration as weapons, tariffs
as leverage, financial infrastructure as
coercion, supply chains as
vulnerabilities to be exploited.
You cannot live within the lie of mutual
benefit through integration. When
integration becomes the source of your subordination,
the multilateral institutions on which
the middle powers have relied, the WTO,
the UN, the COP, the architecture, the
very architecture of collective problem
solving are under threat.
And as a result, many countries are
drawing the same conclusions that they
must develop greater strategic autonomy
in energy, food, critical minerals, in
finance and supply chains. And this
impulse is understandable. A country
that can't feed itself, fuel itself, or
defend itself has few options. When the
rules no longer protect you, you must
protect yourself.
But let's be cleareyed about where this leads.
leads.
A world of fortresses will be poorer,
more fragile, and less sustainable.
And there's another truth. If great
powers abandon even the pretense of
rules and values for the unhindered
pursuit of their power and interests,
the gains from transactionalism
will become harder to replicate.
Hegeimons cannot continually monetize
their relationships.
Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.
uncertainty.
They'll buy insurance, increase options
in order to rebuild sovereignty.
Sovereignty that was once grounded in
rules, but will increasingly be anchored
in the ability to withstand pressure.
This room knows this is classic risk
management. Risk management comes at a price.
price.
But that cost of strategic autonomy of
sovereignty can also be shared.
Collective investments in resilience are
cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses.
fortresses.
Shared standards reduce fragmentations.
Complimentarities are positive some. And
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
Now, Canada was amongst the first to
hear the wakeup call leading us to
fundamentally shift our strategic posture.
posture.
Canadians know that our old comfortable
assumptions that our geography and
alliance memberships automatically
conferred prosperity and security,
that assumption is no longer valid.
And our new approach rests on what
Alexander Stub, the president of
Finland, has termed valuebased realism.
Or to put another way, we aim to be both
principled and pragmatic.
Principled in our commitment to
fundamental values, sovereignty,
territorial integrity, the prohibition
of the use of force except when
consistent with the UN charter, and
respect for human rights. and pragmatic
in recognizing that progress is often
incremental, that interests diverge,
that not every partner will share all of
our values. So, we're engaging broadly,
strategically with open eyes. We
actively take on the world as it is, not
wait around for a world we wish to be.
We are calibrating our relationships so
their depth reflects our values. And
we're prioritizing broad engagement to
maximize our influence. GI and given the
fluidity of the world at the moment, the
risks that this poses and the stakes for
what comes next.
And we are no longer just relying on the
strength of our values, but also the
value of our strength.
We are building that strength at home.
Since my government took office, we have
cut taxes on incomes, on capital gains,
and business investment. We have removed
all federal barriers to interprovincial
trade. We are fasttracking a trillion
dollars of investments in energy, AI,
critical minerals, new trade corridors,
and beyond. We're doubling our defense
spending by the end of this decade, and
we're doing so in ways that build our
domestic industries.
And we are rapidly diversifying abroad.
We've agreed a comprehensive strategic
partnership with the EU, including
joining SAFE, the European defense
procurement arrangements. We have signed
12 other trade and security deals on
four continents in six months. In the
past few days, we've concluded new
strategic partnerships with China and
Qatar. We're negotiating free trade
packs with India, ASEAN, Thailand,
Philippines, and Merkasur.
We're doing something else. To help
solve global problems, we're pursuing
variable geometry. In other words,
different coalitions for different
issues based on common values and
interests. So on Ukraine, we're a core
member of the coalition of the willing
and one of the largest per capita
contributors to its defense and security.
security.
on Arctic's sovereignty. We stand firmly
with Greenland and Denmark and fully
support their unique right to determine
Greenland's future. [applause]
[applause]
Our commitment to NATO's Article 5 is unwavering.
unwavering.
So, we're working with our NATO allies,
including the Nordic Baltic Gate, to
further secure the alliance's northern
and western flanks, including through
Canada's unprecedented investments in
over the horizon radar, in submarines,
in aircraft, and boots on the ground,
boots on the ice.
Canada strongly opposes tariffs over
Greenland and calls for focused talks to
achieve our shared objectives of
security and prosperity in the Arctic.
On plurilateral trade, we're championing
efforts to build a bridge between the
Trans-Pacific Partnership in the
European Union, which would create a new
trading block of 1.5 billion people. On
critical minerals, we're forming buyers
clubs anchored in the G7 so that the
world can diversify away from
concentrated supply. And on AI, we're
cooperating with like-minded democracies
to ensure that we won't ultimately be
forced to choose between hegeimons and hyperscalers.
hyperscalers.
This is not naive multilateralism,
nor is it relying on
their institutions. It's building
coalitions that work issues by issue
with partners who share enough common
ground to act together.
In some cases, this will be the vast
majority of nations. What it's doing is
creating a dense web of connections
across trade investment culture on which
we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.
