Anthony Meffe: The Model UN prime minister

There is no convenient third way of global affairs that can be reached through consultation and planning.

Anthony Meffe is a writer, editor, and educator.

“The strong do as they will, the weak suffer as they must.” The words, taken from Thucydides’ recounting of the Peloponnesian War, are so famous that one would have heard them repeated a thousand times at high school debates and in undergraduate papers two decades ago.

With the diminishment of the classics, and liberal education in general, we now heap obsequious praise on PhD holders and world leaders who can make vague references to the decline of the Athenian Empire. But despite the accolades and warm reception of the Davos bien-pensant, it has been clear for some time that Canada’s Prime Minister Carney is unserious on the world stage: performative, shallow, and manipulative.

As Canada is increasingly sidelined, Carney appears more like a delegate at a grade-school model UN meeting than anyone with a serious plan to extricate this country from decline. The contradictions in the Prime Minister’s Davos address reveal glaring inconsistencies in his approach to Canadian foreign policy, and exacerbate our continuing diminution.

During the election, the fundamental question was clear: “Who could get a deal with Donald Trump?” Our self-imposed deadline of July 21st is now a distant memory, and Canadians are left holding the bag of empty rhetoric and empty promises.

So what are our goals? And where is our strategy?

It is absolutely true that we have been dealt a hard hand quickly, but there has been something tragicomical about watching Mark Carney run through a vanishing list of options as he scrambles to hold together a fraying Canadian diplomatic settlement. Our default strategy since the 1960s has been closer integration with the American economy. That extreme integration and our own economic weakness have left us vulnerable to the designs and demands of the once and future American president, Donald J. Trump.

We are left with a difficult mandate: pivot our economic focus to the wider world while we lack the infrastructure to trade at scale with anyone but America.