Canada is a G7 principal power, shaping global order to advance its national interests and distinctive national values in an increasingly multipower world. It is not a mere middle power, dependent on combining with other middle powers under the multilateral organisations and international law of the 1940s to survive and thrive.

Carney’s Claims at Davos

Prime Minister Mark Carney made this clear in his speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos on January 20, 2026. He accurately stated that the old global order created in the 1940s was now “ruptured.” As Carney put it: “The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied — the WTO, the UN, the COP — the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished.” To be sure, he diplomatically said, twice, that Canada was a middle power, knowing that most other leaders in his audience were from real middle powers. But he then went on to say, at greater length, that Canada was much more than that.

Carney declared, as had Prime Minister Stephen Harper before him, that Canada is an “energy superpower” in a world where energy is central and causing crises. He added: “We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively.” Carney was the first leader of a country of consequence to take down the sign from the window to say so, leading other G7 leaders to take theirs down too.

Canada’s Top-Tier Power

The hard facts of objective capability bear Carney’s claims out in an even bigger, broader way. Canada is now number one in the world in critical capabilities: coastlines, freshwater, wetlands, trees, boreal forests, canola, and the critical minerals of potash and, by some measures, uranium.

Canada is also number one globally in being loved, friendly, battery supply chains, education, travellers’ safety, crime-free, religious freedom, health care, economic optimism, and trusting fellow citizens. And if a country is number one in the world, a middle power it cannot be — for there is no one above for it to be in the middle of.

The Iran war that erupted on February 28, 2026, made Canada more of a top-tier oil and gas power, cutting off supplies from the Middle East. Within the G7, Canada and the United States are the only countries that possess, produce, and export surplus oil and gas. Canada also has surplus clean hydroelectricity and nuclear energy to export to the United States as the renewable revolution gathers force.

Canada’s G7 Leadership

Canada is turning its top-tier power into global leadership. This was evident in Canada’s actions and achievements at and after its G7 Kananaskis Summit last year on June 15–17. At Davos, Carney highlighted some of this: “On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply.” On artificial intelligence, Canada is “cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.” And on Ukraine, Canada is “a member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security.”

At the Kananaskis Summit, with Carney in the chair, there was more magic from the mountaintop. Leaders made 150 commitments, with U.S. President Donald Trump actively and easily agreeing with everyone. On quantum technologies, the summit pioneered global governance with 21 commitments. On wildfires — the deadly extreme weather event intensified by climate change — it made 13 commitments. On AI, it built on Canada’s leadership from the 2018 Charlevoix Summit, adding 49 commitments. On securing critical minerals, it produced 21 commitments.

Canada followed up with agreements and action at subsequent G7 ministerial meetings on energy, the environment, foreign affairs, and technology. With Carney travelling the world after Davos, Canada added new partnerships with China, India, and Japan. Ten days after the war in Iran erupted, Canada was sending its surplus oil and gas to distant, energy-dependent India.

Opportunities to Shape Global Order

Canada has several opportunities to shape global order in the years ahead — advancing its national interests and distinctive national values in a competitive world of sovereign states. Like all countries, Canada must always defend and advance its national interests: survival, security, sovereignty, legitimacy, territory, and relative capability. Once it has done so, it can use its surplus capabilities to advance its distinctive values — anti-militarism, openness, multiculturalism, environmentalism, globalism, and international institutionalisation.

At Davos, Carney noted some of these, saying: “Other countries … like Canada … have the power to build a new world order that integrates values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states.” He went on: “And we have the values to which many others aspire.” He could have added gender equality and Indigenous reconciliation. Of the many initiatives that could mobilise Canada’s capabilities and values to shape global order, two stand out.

The first is to create new international organisations for natural gas — as the International Energy Agency has for oil — and for the clean critical minerals needed for the renewables revolution and national security. The second, amid the Trump-initiated trade wars and the new Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement negotiations, is to pursue what Carney proclaimed at Davos: “On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union.”

Canada and Japan pioneered the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The United Kingdom joined. The United States has not. We could bring the whole European Union in too, creating by far the largest free trade area in the world. As those in Victoria, British Columbia, know more than anyone, Canada is geographically an Atlantic as well as a Pacific and Arctic power. We should express that identity in our global economic life.

This article is adapted from remarks prepared for CIC Couchiching West in Victoria on April 10, 2026 — Mobilizing Canada: Partnerships, Power, and Purpose in a New Global Order. The event marks the first time the Couchiching conference has convened outside Ontario, helping to bridge discussions across Canada, coast-to-coast. A series of follow-up dialogues, including CIC Couchiching National on October 7, will continue throughout the year, following this important initial event.

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