James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.I listened with genuine interest to Prime Minister Carney’s speech at Davos. It was, by any technical measure, one of his better performances. Polished, confident, impeccably delivered. If one were unfamiliar with the actual state of affairs, if one were blissfully ignorant of the realities beneath what he calls the “rupture” in international relations, the speech might have appeared a beacon of hope in dark times.And therein lies the problem. One must either be ignorant of the facts or willing to live a lie.The great irony of Mr. Carney’s address is that while he invokes Václav Havel’s admonition against “living in the lie,” he proceeds to deliver a speech saturated with contradictions, misdirection, and half-truths, inviting his audience not to abandon falsehood, but to exchange an old one for a newer, more fashionable lie. If that sounds tangled, confused, and disorienting, I suspect that was precisely the point..BEST / RUBENSTEIN: Why indigenous rights in Canada’s Constitution must be repealed.Mr. Carney speaks of a great rupture: the collapse of the so-called rules-based international order, which he insists must now be named as failed so it can be replaced. This was, of course, a not-so-subtle rebuke of the United States (US) and its recent insistence on renegotiating trade, defence, and economic arrangements — particularly with Canada and Europe.He characterizes this rupture as “power nations” (read: the United States) exerting “economic coercion” over “intermediate” countries. But let us not live in that lie. What is happening is not coercion. It is accountability.It is almost comical to hear Mr. Carney suggest that the US has abandoned the rules when, in fact, the core grievance of successive US administrations has been that Western allies, Canada and Europe among them, have been the ones flouting the rules they agreed to. That may sting, but it is nonetheless true..The moment crystallized during then-President-elect Trump’s now-famous dinner with former Prime Minister Trudeau, when Trump bluntly pointed out the inequities in the trade and defence relationship. Canada, he noted, had violated USMCA commitments through illegal tariffs and had consistently failed to meet NATO defence-spending obligations. “What,” he mused aloud, “would happen if they did the same?” The rest, as they say, became either fifty-first state hysteria — or histrionics, depending on one’s ideological leanings.The rupture, then, was not America abandoning the rules. It was America enforcing them..OLDCORN: Nicotine pouches belong in Canada’s nicotine harm-reduction toolbox.From Washington’s perspective, it was Canada and Europe that had drifted, economically, militarily, and morally, from the values they once shared with the US: free speech, freedom of conscience, open political competition, and genuine democratic pluralism. When the Americans had the audacity to “remove the sign from the window,” to borrow Mr. Carney’s phrase, and point this out, it was treated as sacrilege.What followed has been less principled resistance than petulant outrage at being called to account.And so, Mr. Carney delivered a masterful speech urging the world to stop living in lies, while simultaneously presenting a catalogue of them. Consider just a few..He claims to have removed all barriers to interprovincial trade. One wonders if Premier Eby or the First Nations leadership received the memo. Perhaps the sign is still in the window. Take it down.He boasts of fast-tracking a trillion dollars in investment into AI, energy, and critical minerals. A brief examination reveals billions in government infrastructure spending, but the remaining hundreds of billions exist largely as aspiration. No verifiable source. No commitments. No clarity. Take that sign down.He speaks proudly of increasing defence spending by decade’s end, while failing to meet NATO commitments today. Take the sign down..THOMAS: A water utility oversight board must be Calgary council's top priority.He touts twelve trade and security “deals.” Two are actual agreements. The rest are MOUs, letters of intent, and expressions of interest, non-binding, unfunded, and of no immediate value to Canadians. Take that sign down.Do you see the pattern?Yes, he has made overtures to China and Qatar, both nations with abysmal human-rights records. Is this now part of our shared values? China’s environmental record alone should give pause. Perhaps this, too, is a feature of the new moral architecture of the “New World Order.”.He speaks of Canada as an energy superpower, though the evidence suggests otherwise. He speaks of immense fiscal capacity, straight-faced, despite a decade of deficits, unless, of course, he means more taxation. Canadians know precisely where that “capacity” comes from, and they should be alarmed.Finally, he paints Canada as a vast, open square of free and vibrant discourse. One wonders whether the supporters of the Freedom Convoy, some of whom had bank accounts frozen, share that sunny assessment. More signs to remove..COHEN: Carney government’s wholly inadequate response to the scourge of antisemitism.Mr. Carney concludes by warning that sovereignty is undermined when people negotiate under economic coercion. Premier Danielle Smith may find comfort in that principle. So too might Canadians who discovered that dissent carried financial consequences.So let us follow Mr. Carney’s advice and name the lie.There is no rupture. There is accountability..He may dislike the methods of the US, but accountability it remains, and it is accountability demanded after ten years of failed Liberal policy. The real purpose of this narrative is to avoid confronting the US directly; to avoid making the deal he promised Canadians during the election and now hopes they have forgotten. It is an old trick: when you don’t want people to see your failures internally, give them something to fear externally, a classic misdirect.One final point. The notion that Canada should pivot trade away from the US, recipient of up to 75% of our exports, toward China, which accounts for roughly three to four percent, is not strategic diversification. It is insanity. We would merely be exchanging one superpower partner for another, except this new partner shares none of our values and is vastly more comfortable with economic and political coercion than our neighbours to the south have ever been..NEUMANN: Sound money for a serious country — how an independent Alberta can succeed where Canada failed.What could possibly go wrong?So, thank you, Mr. Carney, for the lesson on naming the lie, for taking the sign out of the window, and for showing Canadians exactly what you believe. It was a well-executed speech, built, unfortunately, on a poor foundation of contradictions.If it’s all the same to you, we’ll pass on the Great Lie of your New World Order.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
