“Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path” Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
January 20, 2026
Davos, Switzerland
https://youtu.be/izDAOvHz5Wc?si=EsBxkHTVaD3lMhxP
| 행사명 | 세계경제포럼(World Economic Forum) 연차총회 |
| 연설 주제 | Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path |
| 연사 | Mark Carney (캐나다 총리) |
| 날짜 | 2026년 1월 20일 |
| 장소 | 스위스 다보스 (Davos, Switzerland) |
| KOR | ENG | 비고 |
| 1)aphorism of Thucydides | 투키디데스의 격언 | “강자는 할 수 있는 것을 하고, 약자는 감당해야 할 것을 감당한다”는 국제정치 현실주의를 상징하는 표현을 남김 |
2)Czech dissident Václav Havel | 체코의 반체제 인사 바츨라프 하벨 | 공산 체제에 저항했던 지식인·정치인 |
| 3)The Power of the Powerless | 『무력한 자들의 힘』 | 하벨의 1978년 정치 에세이. 전체주의 체제가 폭력이 아니라 일상적 순응으로 유지된다는 분석 |
| 4)greengrocer | 채소가게 주인 | 하벨의 비유에 등장하는 인물로, 체제를 믿지 않지만 문제를 피하려 순응하는 평범한 시민의 상징 |
(451 words)
It’s a pleasure – and a duty – to be with you at this turning point for Canada and for the world.
Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.
But I also submit to you that other countries, particularly middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states.
The power of the less powerful begins with honesty.
Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry.
That the rules-based order is fading.
That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable – 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. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.
It won’t.
So, what are our options?
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?
His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. 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.
Havel 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 greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.
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, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability.
We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false.
That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient.
That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically.
And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.