Read the full text of Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech about a shakeup of the global order and role of middle powers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Canadian Prime Minister Mary Carney’s keynote address at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos has sparked widespread international coverage as global news organizations weigh the future amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a pointed speech at the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos, declaring that decades of reliance on the rules-based international order have become untenable.

As President Trump continued his quest for Greenland, Prime Minister Mark Carney said great powers were unrestrained and urged medium-size countries to band together.

Carney evoked the landmark 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless“ by former Czech freedom fighter Václav Havel, who eventually led the Velvet Revolution that led to free elections in his country in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall toppled the Soviet Union. Havel later received a hero’s welcome in Canada in 1999.

States like Canada have long known the current system of international rules-based order is a “fiction,” Carney said.

Without naming Trump, Carney appeared to criticise US threats over tariffs and Greenland, reaffirming Canada’s support for Greenland, Denmark and Nato’s collective defence.

Mark Carney said middle powers such as Canada could build a new order in an era of unfettered great powers, without directly mentioning Trump or the U.S.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the US-led “rules-based international order” is undergoing a fundamental breakdown. He said the world is facing “a rupture, not a transition” and warned that economic integration is being used as a tool of coercion.