Good morning. In his first Davos speech as Prime Minister, Mark Carney highlighted a system that bends to the powerful \u2013 more on that below, along with the NDP leadership contenders and Heated Rivalry\u2019s sexy consent. But first:<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s headlinesOpen this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Mark Carney at Davos yesterday.Denis Balibouse\/Reuters<\/p>\n World OrderBetween empires<\/p>\n Mark Carney isn\u2019t exactly a stranger to Davos: He\u2019s attended the World Economic Forum in Switzerland roughly 30 times. But in his first appearance as Prime Minister, Carney delivered a speech yesterday<\/a> peppered with references to an unexpected source. There were no Adam Smith aphorisms or John Maynard Keynes quotes \u2013 this time, he invoked V\u00e1clav Havel, the Czech dissident playwright turned president.<\/p>\n In his 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless, Havel imagines a greengrocer<\/a> who slides a communist sign \u2013 \u201cWorkers of the world, unite!\u201d \u2013 into his shop window among the onions and carrots. The grocer doesn\u2019t believe the slogan. Neither do his neighbours with their own window signs. But to dodge trouble or reproach from those in charge, \u201cthey must live within a lie,\u201d Havel wrote. And \u201cby this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s the exact same, Carney argued in Davos, for middle powers like Canada still propping up the fiction<\/a> of a rules-based international order. For decades, these countries got a bunch out of the U.S.-superpower bargain: collective security, financial stability, predictable foreign affairs. In exchange, they agreed to overlook that the rules didn\u2019t apply equally<\/a> to everyone \u2013 that \u201cthe strongest would exempt themselves when convenient,\u201d as Carney said, and that international law was \u201capplied with varying rigour\u201d depending on the victim and aggressor. <\/p>\n Only now, with superpowers ignoring territorial sovereignty and hijacking global trade, that bargain is no longer worth it. Carney urged medium-sized countries to band together instead, building new strategic alliances, inking security and defence deals, diversifying their trade internationally and strengthening their economies at home. <\/p>\n But first, he said, middle powers must \u201ccall the system what it is: a period of intensifying great-power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.\u201d Canada and its partners don\u2019t need to fulfill that system any longer. It\u2019s time, Carney maintained, for \u201ccountries to take their signs down.\u201d<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Just one of the AI-generated images Donald Trump posted yesterday.Supplied<\/p>\n Havel is a solid choice for a framing device \u2013 he was an acolyte of Samuel Beckett and the theatre of the absurd. How else to understand this bizarre, illogical, anxious<\/a> political moment? Shortly before Carney spoke at Davos, U.S. President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself planting the American flag<\/a> on Greenland\u2019s soil. He followed that up with another AI image of the Stars and Stripes covering Canada, Greenland and Venezuela. He trolled French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO chief Mark Rutte by leaking their text messages to him. Trump later reiterated that Norway \u2013 and not the Nobel Institute \u2013 was definitely responsible<\/a> for his Peace Prize snub. \u201cDon\u2019t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn\u2019t control the shots, okay?\u201d he insisted to reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s in Norway!\u201d<\/p>\n But as Carney circled back to Havel yesterday, he revealed a major challenge facing middle powers. In order for them to \u201clive the truth,\u201d rather than live within a lie, \u201cit means naming reality,\u201d the Prime Minister said. Except Carney didn\u2019t actually name Trump anywhere in his Davos speech. Neither did Macron, who criticized a \u201cnew imperialism,\u201d or European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who warned \u201cnostalgia will not bring back the old world order.\u201d Media reports fell back on the same language: These comments were a \u201cveiled broadside<\/a>\u201d at Trump, or a \u201cthinly veiled swipe<\/a>\u201d at Trump, or \u201cthinly veiled denunciations<\/a>\u201d of the president.<\/p>\n And that veil is understandable! Canada can strike a tariff deal<\/a> with China, join the European Union\u2019s military procurement fund<\/a> and pursue new markets in India<\/a>, but the U.S. remains our nearest neighbour and biggest trading partner by far. Carney has to be very, very careful about antagonizing Trump too directly. We badly need to preserve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which still lets most of our exports cross the border tariff-free. Speaking of borders: It would also be much better if the U.S. didn\u2019t invade ours, since \u2013 according to our own military models<\/a> \u2013 we\u2019d have about a week until American forces overcame Canada\u2019s strategic positions on land and at sea.<\/p>\n But something more will likely have to be done, even if middle powers aren\u2019t yet ready to call it by name. Carney said as much near the end of his speech: \u201cIf we\u2019re not at the table, we\u2019re on the menu.\u201d It didn\u2019t have quite the same literary flourish, but the Davos crowd rose to their feet.<\/p>\n The Shot\u2018Nobody is trying to win the sex.\u2019 Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams in a scene from Heated Rivalry.Bell Media\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n As Canadian exports go, Heated Rivalry is shamelessly explicit \u2013 and it\u2019s explicitly consensual, too. Read more about the show\u2019s yes-means-yes sex scenes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The WrapWhat else we\u2019re following<\/p>\n At home: Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne said Canada would not shell out $1-billion<\/a> to join Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cBoard of Peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Abroad: After France\u2019s President, Emmanuel Macron, declined to join the \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d altogether, Trump threatened to slap 200-per-cent tariffs<\/a> on French wine.<\/p>\n Politics: Federal New Democrats will choose their new leader from these five candidates<\/a> in just over two months.<\/p>\n Streaming: Netflix capped last year with another solid financial performance<\/a> (but you can find Heated Rivalry on Crave).<\/p>\n Claims: Severe weather across Canada caused more than $2.4-billion<\/a> in insured damages last year.<\/p>\n