March 14, 2026
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HERE'S MY TAKE
Even before the U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, there was already a widespread sense that the world is in the middle of rapidly changing geopolitics. Setting aside the military and trade disputes that now seem too numerous to track, the approach of President Trump’s presidency to reduce (and even undo) multilateralism, and to have the United States prioritize bilateral relationships with almost every other country, has displaced many prevailing norms. How Canada responds to that shift is now a central question of our politics—and the difference between Mr. Carney’s and Mr. Poilievre’s approaches is less about what to do than about what to do first.
From an American perspective, this shift makes sense. When you are the strongest in a bilateral relationship, you tend to get what you want more often. Multilateralism changes the equation. When middle powers coordinate, they can offset the largest power’s advantage. If winning at home is the metric–without regard for the global implications and longer-term consequences–then “Making America Great Again” is best achieved by bilateralism.
At the heart of Prime Minister Carney’s now-famous speech at Davos in January was accepting this American reality. “We deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” the Prime Minister said. The logical response, Carney argued, given the accompanying political fragmentation and declining trust in global institutions, is that middle powers must intentionally work together to build flexible coalitions around trade, security, and climate.
The Prime Minister is trying to embody that strategy with his frequent foreign travel. He just returned from ten days in India, Japan, and Australia, and next week is off to Norway and the United Kingdom. His strategy appears to be aimed at positioning Canada as a leader in catalyzing new forms of multilateral cooperation. Carney is drawing on the social capital he acquired in his previous roles in global finance to align the strategies of potential trade and diplomatic partners. The hope is that stronger middle power networks will compensate for Canada’s relatively limited military and economic weight.
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s alternative emphasis begins closer to home: strengthening Canada’s domestic economic position and focusing first on the bilateral relationship that will always matter most—its relationship with the United States. We focus on “what we can control” was Poilievre’s message. “We must respond with strength. … We have leverage. I will use that leverage. Retaliation is only the beginning.”
The difference between these approaches lies not in what’s on the to-do list, but in how the list is prioritized. In his Economic Club of Canada speech, Mr. Poilievre reminded his audience that no amount of middle-power multilateralism will offset the geographic reality in which Canada lives. Canada and the United States maintain one of the world’s largest bilateral trading relationships. We also share the longest undefended border on the planet. An adversarial relationship would carry costs for the security and economic prosperity of both countries, making cooperation the logical path for both.
Given the reality of an American administration less interested in cooperation at this time, Mr. Poilievre suggests prioritizing our internal economic issues with a view to building economic strength. While the Conservative leader does not dismiss multilateralism, he is quick to point out that under the Harper government, Canada negotiated free trade agreements with more than 40 countries. These include the CETA agreement with the European Union, the CPTPP agreement with major Indo-Pacific economies such as Australia and Japan, and bilateral agreements across Latin America and Asia. Still, Mr. Poilievre suggested focusing on the Canada-US relationship, which will always be Canada’s largest and most significant. Neither Mr. Carney nor Mr. Poilievre would dismiss the both/and argument, but their messages clearly prioritize the list and frame the narrative very differently.
Many have recently speculated about a spring election. Several factors favoured one: a minority government limiting the government’s ability to act decisively, a significant Liberal polling advantage, and the tantalizing prospect that a clear electoral mandate might strengthen the government’s hand as they head into the renegotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico free trade agreement (CUSMA). But a spring election seems increasingly unlikely. Floor crossings and by-elections are giving the Liberals a likely narrow working majority. The complications of holding a federal election amid upcoming provincial elections and potential separation referendums in Quebec and Alberta make it all the more politically risky.
If a spring election were held, the ballot question that might emerge would be whether Canada should prioritize securing an agreement with the United States. Conservatives would likely argue that Mr. Poilievre’s economic priorities—lower taxes, among other affordability measures, deregulation, and expanded energy production and infrastructure—would strengthen Canada’s bargaining position. A stronger economic hand would enable a Prime Minister Poilievre to secure a good deal.
The Liberals would frame the issue differently. They’d talk as much as they could about the threat that an unpredictable President Trump poses to Canada. They’d argue that Mr. Carney, with the help of his international friends, is uniquely equipped to deal with that challenge. He would continue to strengthen Canada’s global alliances, improve negotiating leverage, and wait for a more favourable moment to strike a new agreement.
The “wait it out” strategy is a hard sell amid ongoing layoffs and perceived existential threats to sectors hardest hit by tariffs. Others counter that, regardless of the terms, a deal is of little value with an American president who seems to have no compunction about unilaterally changing the effective terms of relationships. From this perspective, Canada already enjoys better access to U.S. markets than most other countries. Domestic American legal and political developments may combine to reduce presidential leverage.
Mr. Poilievre’s argument is that his priorities would be best served by taking whatever time it takes to build up economic leverage. When a deal is finally done, the quality of the hand will matter as much as the skill of the negotiator (although he would also argue that he would be the better negotiator).
Mr. Carney is providing a somewhat broader proposition. Use the time not only to build economic capital (as he would argue he is doing with the major projects office and various domestic initiatives) but also to build global social capital to provide us with stronger alternatives and make us less reliant on that deal, whenever it is eventually realized.
It’s not that Mr. Poilievre is ignoring the international angle. He sought to brush up his global influence credentials, making a trip to the U.K. and Germany last week and announcing a planned trip to the United States. Any opposition leader finds it inherently difficult to build global relationships. In the meantime, there is a patriotic obligation not to undermine the sitting government abroad. So, the opposition will continue to focus on the domestic agenda, arguing that the government’s words are bigger than its actions and do not reflect the urgency of the circumstances faced by ordinary Canadians.
While the partisan nature of politics will highlight differences, the debate is as much about emphasis as it is about principle.
Trade policy ultimately shapes more than economic outcomes. It helps define the sort of country Canada becomes. While the hard numbers of trade balances, defence spending, and productivity growth are easiest to measure, relationships of trust and influence often prove equally consequential over time. In a world where power is increasingly contested, social capital alone is not enough—but neither is hard power without trusted relationships.
Canada has historically leveraged its reputation, its proximity to the United States, and its strong living standards into diplomatic influence that exceeds its raw capabilities. By some measures, Canada ranks roughly tenth globally by economic size, around sixteenth by purchasing-power comparisons, and somewhere in the mid-twenties militarily. Yet it remains a member of the G7. We earned that seat with a reputation as a constructive middle power. That reputation has weakened over the past decades, and rebuilding that standing appears to be one of Mr. Carney’s priorities. His calculation is presumably that strengthening Canada’s global relationships is not only desirable in principle but ultimately advantageous in practice.
There are risks in such a strategy. Building alliances inevitably creates friction with others, including the United States, which is explicitly pursuing a different agenda. In an era when global relationships are being renegotiated, every alignment carries trade-offs.
Predictions about how these dynamics will unfold are therefore risky. What is clear, however, is that domestic issues such as affordability, productivity, and economic growth will increasingly be shaped by the way Canada navigates this evolving international landscape.
Being Canadian has always involved attempting to exert influence that exceeds our raw capacity. Historically, we have managed that challenge reasonably well. Doing so in a more turbulent world will be harder—but it will also be unavoidable.
WHAT I’M READING
Building a New Elite
Sam Duncan writes on WithoutDiminishment.com, that the mainstream conversation seems more effective at criticizing the liberal establishment than at cultivating talent and developing a “counter-elite” required to govern from a more conservative perspective. Noting that “elites inevitably exist,” Duncan urges a focus on building one “rooted in a virtuous understanding of the created order, good governance, and state capacity, one that resists imposing radical social engineering. This new elite must unwind the denationalization and deculturalization fostered by liberal elites, while offering an alternative vision of Canadian nationalism and culture from first principles.”
Canada’s Crises in Perspective
Geoff Sigalet is a constitutional and political science professor at the University of British Columbia whose framing piece, published in Civitas Outlook this week, provides a helpful perspective on the constitutional and separation challenges facing Canada today. His retrospective on the past decade provides context for why relations between provincial and federal governments in Canada seem frayed, with the status quo challenged by potential separation referendums in Alberta and Quebec and by various court challenges. He avoids making predictions but notes that things “could grow far worse” for the country, even as he charts the potential political implications, both positive and negative, for the current government.
Subsidiarity and Solidarity
This week’s Cardus report, “Bonds of Solidarity: How Subsidiarity Helps Canadians Care for Refugees,” written by my colleague Renze Nauta, highlights the differences in outcomes between private and public sponsorship of refugees in Canada. The report not only contains valuable data and conclusions on the refugee issue but also offers a very helpful framework for thinking about public policy more generally. Nauta opens with a short explanation of the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity and their historic origins within Christian social thought, concluding with a series of framing questions that can be applied to many public policy questions regarding how these principles might be applied.
MEANINGFUL METRICS
The quip “If you’re not a socialist when you are 20 means you have no heart; if you’re not conservative at 40 means you have no brain,” has been around in various iterations for a few centuries. Attributions can be found for Winston Churchill, Otto von Bismarck, Bertrand Russell, and George Bernard Shaw, among other notables from various countries. It popped to mind when I saw this x.com post from sociologist Ryan Burge, accompanying some graphs that suggest the trend toward more conservative ideology as one ages is very evident in those born between 1940 and 1954, only moderately true for those born from 1955 to 1979, and not at all true for those born in 1980 or later. Whether this is due to younger cohorts not being able to “experience the American dream” (his data is of the U.S. population) in the same way as their parents and hence, more open to systems that challenge the status quo, or whether this might be due to changing definitions of what might be considered “liberal” or “conservative” is difficult to determine without a deeper dive. The data, however, does confirm the clear demographic differences that exist within today’s voting population.
TAKE IT TO-GO
As certain as spring follows winter, the debate over springing our clocks forward to daylight saving time flares up. Officially, we started the later sun clock-in time last weekend, which means a little more evening daylight for whatever fun and games we decide to fill it with. British Columbia has already tried to wind the whole clock-adjustment routine down permanently, while for the rest of us it’s still just a six-month snooze button on standard time, with darker dinners scheduled to clock back in come November.
The experience of time change has changed in this digital age. Automatic updates quietly spring forward on our phones, cars, ovens, and microwaves right on cue, leaving only the stubborn wall clock staging a one-hour protest. Resetting it isn’t hard—unless you count the five attempts it takes to get it hanging level again. But that doesn’t stop the debate from ticking on. Economists warn about productivity; sleep experts say our circadian rhythms would prefer we stop playing musical clocks with the sun. Whatever the policy verdict, if spring is nature’s way of turning over a new leaf, daylight saving time is its way of making sure brighter—and longer—days are finally right on time.
Speaking of right on time, you should look for the next edition of Insights next Saturday morning at 6 a.m. EST. Until then, enjoy the sunshine and your lighter evenings.