In post-Davos speech, Canadian PM jabs at Trump, saying the arc of history ‘can still bend towards progress and justice’

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said his country must be a “beacon to a world that’s at sea” and that national unity was critical as his government faces a dramatic reshaping of the world political order – and mounting domestic challenges

The national address, given at a historic military fortress in Quebec City, was far narrower in scope than the prime minister’s remarks earlier in the week at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. Dubbed the ‘Carney Doctrine’, the Davos speech lamented the disintegration of rules-based order amid a rise of “great powers” that used economic “coercion” as a weapon.

But his Thursday speech on the grounds of a famed citadel, built to fend off a potential American invasion, nonetheless laid out a defence of Canadian values and his vision for where the country fit into a rapidly changing world.

“Canada cannot solve all the world’s problems, but we can show that another way is possible: that the arc of history isn’t destined to be warped towards authoritarianism and exclusion, it can still bend towards progress and justice,” he said.