by H Scott, P Henry. 26May26
PM Mark Carney Davos’ speech hedged his bets. Without mentioning Trump or any of the problems of society he suggested a “new alliance of middle powers”.
It doesn’t question wars and the annihilation of peoples in Sudan or Gaza or Vietnam or East Timor or China, or Myanmar or USA or Rwanda. Because for those in the old power, and ostensibly the new coalition mass killing can be lawful if committed by the right state, against the right people, with the right patrons….
Carney, with mixed intentions, appears willing to go against his big boss Trump, maybe to up his standing in the polls, playing on America’s threats to annex Canada along with Venezuela, Greenland, perhaps Scotland ‘to protect his golf course there’*. It would be better if he named that power-mad president and chose to have new policies directed to the needy around the world.
Matthew Behrens writes that Canada as a “middle power” has done significant damage to the global ecosystem and human rights infrastructure. That…while the wool is over our eyes, we will continue supporting the most dangerous economic system the world has ever known, one that threatens to drown or burn us to death on the road to a good day at the stock market.
CBC’s Fannie Olivier (rough translation) says Carney, that ‘Trump (unnamed)’, signals the beginning of a brutal reality where the great powers of are not to limited to any constraints. (Carney) deplores the fact that these hegemonies use a variety of economic and military tactics to create vulnerabilities.
Carney at the same time is doubling defence spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds [sic] our domestic industries. Carney’s Canada is cutting taxes on incomes, on capital gains and business investment… removing all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors and beyond.
In Canada the indigenous & poor people are unsheltered in harsh winters. While building up trade, cutting taxes for the profitable, he’s gutting Canadian civil service, which means the gutting of social programs, cutting needed services. All in the name of balancing the powers toward greater profit for a few. Sound familiar, just change the faces.
He was right about… because if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu…. but just who will be on the menu again.
He doesn’t state he’s against using economic integration as a means of pressure, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as a means of coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. He just doesn’t want to be at the bottom of the stack.
Davos is about power and geo-politics. Carney is politicking to get a bigger piece of the riches not feeding those who need it. Varoufakis is similar to this critique**.
*https://vimeo.com/155888251?fl=pl&fe=sh https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
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