Canadian rebound: Why the EU cares about Mark Carney

The EU’s latest summit of its leaders had one objective: to show how the rest of the West is moving on while the US under President Donald Trump is neck-deep in a relationship drama. Right now it’s with Iran, but before that it was Venezuela. And it looks like Cuba may be next.

Until now, the EU has been acting like they’re in an on/off relationship while still keeping their toothbrush in Trump’s bathroom because it wasn’t quite ready to make a clean break. It still isn’t. But now it’s found one of America’s exes willing to come hang out at slumber parties so they can dish to each other about him on the down-low. About how they’re all working together now as besties and leaning on each other to move on without him, making him big mad.

Enter Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said at the EU meeting in Armenia that the “international order will be rebuilt… out of Europe.” It would be helpful if he, or someone, anyone who thinks they’re in the driver’s seat of this so-called world order, could actually define it for the rest of us. Because the paying public wouldn’t mind knowing exactly what we’re financing. Granted, there’s no better way to assure compliance than to avoid defining any terms.

It was just a few months ago in Davos that Carney was saying that the international order was a scam. “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 we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim,” Carney said to rapturous applause from the exact same people who had, until that moment, treated the notion as gospel.

Better late than never. But what’s taking its place now? What Carney – the former head of British and Canadian central banks and the G20’s Financial Stability Board in the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown – is suggesting sounds like something close to late Roman or Hegelian political metaphysics: “Ordo mundi in me consistit.” Or “the order of the world rests in me.” And the EU seems keen to hop aboard that float without checking where the parade is actually going, letting Carney lead the way in defining this new world order that he has yet to spell out.

So Carney became the first non-European leader to be invited to an EU political community summit. Where he was promptly mugged by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola with a request to speak to the EU parliament almost before he could disembark onto the tarmac. Because the EU can’t organize pints in a pub, never mind a coherent strategy. So it would be great if he could do some of the heavy lifting as everyone else nods while leaning over their laminated briefing papers.

Carney is smart enough to go along with it. He’s walking around with all the air of a chick with double D’s preaching unity and moral values while European leaders nod and drool over the assets. Because everyone knows what’s under that modest turtleneck and demeanor: sweet, sweet energy and minerals.

“Bound by a shared history and common values, Canada and Europe are natural partners,” Carney said at the summit. Whatever, bro. Get that bag! No one’s looking at your values. They’re just being polite.

But Carney knows that, too. He’s Pamela Anderson running along the Baywatch beach in slow motion, knowing that people aren’t tuning in for the plot. Which is why his office’s readout cut to the chase: “The leaders discussed deepening collaboration in priority areas such as secure supply chains, critical minerals, energy, and digital technologies. Prime Minister Carney emphasized Canada’s competitive advantages in these sectors.”

Trade diversification for Canada away from the US is long overdue, and it’s clear that Carney sees a rare opportunity to leverage the EU’s rupture with both the US and Russia to cash in. It’s about time.

But the concern for Canadians is that he gets a little too chummy with their ideology while he’s at it. We’re talking here about the same guy who published an opinion piece in a Canadian national newspaper during the Freedom Convoy protests against Liberal government Covid restriction overreach (officially admonished by the courts), and suggested they were stooges of foreign interests – a bold assumption later officially denied by Canadian intelligence.

So the concern is that Carney is still too easily prone to bandwaggoning. And the EU is just one giant nonstop ideological tailgate party. For instance, what exactly does Carney mean by “digital services” cooperation with the EU? It’s not a stretch to imagine moves toward a digital panopticon that controls movement, resources, and behavior, when Covid already gave governments a trial run for that kind of social management – particularly in an era of increased dissent as a result of misguided leadership and institutional corruption and self-dealing.

That said, Carney also seems capable of using globalist language and agenda points as a convenient cover. Like when he announced, in meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in Armenia, that Canada would pledge $270 million more “for Ukraine” in the form of munitions. The EU cheered, while the reality is that it’s also a tidy way for Canada to boost GDP and manufacturing jobs making this ammo. Specifically, Canada has the minerals and the joint ventures at home with the US (via General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Quebec) and the Czech Republic (via the Colt CZ Group’s Colt Canada) to produce it. But wrap anything in a Ukrainian flag and enough summit delegates will applaud before reading the fine print.

Here’s hoping that Carney can at least show the EU how to use globalism as rhetorical cover while still pivoting toward the self-interest of its own people. Otherwise, it serves no practical purpose at all. It’s an abandoned shopping mall with flickering fluorescent lights still flickering, escalators still humming, muzak still echoing through empty corridors. Carney should be leading the charge in slipping out the back carrying whatever value remains – to prepare it for the wrecking ball.

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