The Current - How the new world disorder could make Canada stronger

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Six months ago, Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out a new and pragmatic path for middle powers in the face of an increasingly hostile U.S. and a rising China. In a new season of his podcast "Gloves Off" journalist Stephen Marche considers the opportunities for Canada given the new geopolitical reality.

I am an actor, fresh out of theater school with big dreams and an even bigger drug habit. But things are pretty good. That is until my best friend is set up on a date with David Lee Roth. Yeah, from Van Halen. If you know, you know. From CBC's personally, this is Discount Dave and the Fix. The true-ish story about how a fake rock star led me to a real trial that held up a mirror to me. And okay, let's just say that not everyone in this story is who you think they are.

Personally, discount Dave and the Fix. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. The powerful have their power. We have something to. The capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada's path.

We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us. When Mark Carney gave that speech in Davos back in January, it echoed around the world. Middle powers caught between an increasingly hostile United States and a rising China, praised the Canadian Prime Minister for putting into words what many were already feeling. Five months later, the journalist Stephen Marsh is considering the fate of those middle powers and Canada's new place in the world in a new season of his podcast, Gloves Off. That new season drops on Canada Day, the first of July, but he's with me in studio this morning with a preview. Good morning.

Hey, Matt. How you doing? Nice to see you. The very first words of this new season of the podcast are, it's been a hell of a year. Yeah. We played a little bit of that speech that the prime minister gave. When you think back to it, what was your initial reaction to what he was saying in January? Well, I think what it was is we'd sort of heard that message in Canada for a long time. when the 51st state rhetoric really picked up.

So it'd been almost a year that Mark Carney had basically been saying that in Canada. What it was was the world realizing that he was right and the world realizing that they were in the same boat as we were, i.e., the rules-based order is falling apart. America has turned from a partner to a predator and how do we deal with that? And how do we build a new world after we've entered this new state of disorder? Nobody else seemed to be saying that out loud, though. How important was it that he, a Canadian, said that? Well, we interviewed, you know, like Malcolm Turnbull, the ex-prime minister of Australia,

Alistair Campbell, from, you know, we interviewed people, Margaret Vesteyer, like, these very important people in Europe and around the world, they all think about it all the time. Right. Like, it is very much at the front of mind in global circles about the consequences of this moment in history. Why do you think that is? I mean, he said things that people hadn't been saying perhaps out loud. You said in your podcast that this is the most consequences. sequential speech in a generation. Yeah. Well, I think there are two things. First of all,

it's the basic acknowledgement of reality. So that always helps, right? Like, you know, it helps to be right when you're making a speech. But then also, I think it also established like, okay, if this is over, we should stop worrying about the threat of America going away and start figuring out, okay, what do we do now? I mean, there's an expression in chess, which is the threat is always worse than the execution, right? Like, the threat is worse than the capture because when you're worried about the threat, you can't plan for that. You can't make your own plans. You can't, but once the threat has happened, then you can start to plan.

Then you can start to figure out, okay, what can we do to build here? How can we win? Right. And that's why this second season, like the first season of Gloves Off was really, are we going to survive? And what are we? And also, like, what are we missing to allow us to survive? This season is really much more, how can we win? How can we, how can we enter this new world we're entering with confidence and with a

sense of optimism, which I think is really quite justified a sense of optimism. So you ran down some of the people that you spoke with. And in talking about what our place in the world might be, one of the people that you speak with is Peter McKay, who was the defense minister, foreign affairs minister, understood in Harper. Here's a little bit of what Peter McKay said to you. We cannot replicate the trade that we have with the United States with the European Union, with parts of the Asia Pacific, including China, with all of our other allies and potential allies, India, Pakistan, others. We can't do that fast enough without the real potential of massive economic harm. Peter McKay compares the situation between Canada and the

United States to an abusive relationship. Yeah. How do you understand that language? Well, you know, I think there are a few things going on. I mean, first of all, I have a great deal of admiration. for Peter McKay. I think he's a patriot. But I think this country right now is really torn between two visions, a new Canada and an old Canada. What do you mean? Well, the old Canada is this, thinks this is all going to go back to normal. Trump's going to get out and we're going to go back to being pretty dependent on the United States. And this international order will tag a log and will be part of it. I mean, he essentially says it. He says the state of the relationship is a fracture, not a rupture. And not only that, like we talked to Peter McKay, but we also talk to

John Manley, the liberal, you know, basically his predecessor in the Kretchen government, and he said much the same thing, right? Like the idea of a fracture, if you fracture your leg, that would be repaired. But when you, the thing is when you talk, so, and that is one perspective, but the new Canada is like, actually that relationship's broken, so what does the new reality look like? And when you look at the new reality, like, for example, even in the past year, like where the trauma is just setting in, our exports increased by $8 billion, right? Like, we like, we did we partnered with the canadian shield institute this year and they did we it was great to have you know

economists that data yeah we can actually like ask them give us these this data and you know we replaced our lost trade with the united states almost completely and then our trade and services actually grew so we had more of an export deficit this year that we had the year before and when the bank of canada when they ran their stimulations of what um you know the worst case scenario of of of tariffs we with the United States would be, it was a loss of potential growth of 2.8% over a decade. So that's a terrible number. Like that's a lot of, but that's not worth losing your country for. That's just potential growth.

But isn't McKay right though? I mean, we are still going to have to deal. Oh, yes. We're going to have to deal. But like when you talk to Malcolm Turnbull and you talk to the Australians, what you realize is like Australia got rich, got much richer than we did over the past. 20 years by selling iron order to China, right? China is their number one threat, right? They do not share any values with China. And so we're going to continue to trade with the United States,

of course, under what conditions is unknown. But if you have potash, if you have oil, if you have aluminum, someone will buy it. These are global markets. So, you know, I think one of the naive ideas we've had in this country is that you trade with people whose values you share. Japan and China are each other's number one trading partners. And I think we have to, we have to actually be really practical about this. And when you look at it practically, we're actually, you know, the, the only thing that can really defeat us in our trade negotiations with the Americans is fear. It was interesting. It really is fear. The prime minister yesterday did a news conference and was asked about when is a deal coming? There is urgency. And there are people who are saying enough already.

Speeches are good. But come on. And he said, we could have a deal this afternoon, but it would be, it would be a bad deal. Well, we're not in control of this situation. Like, also I would just- But he also suggested that there's some control that we, if we were to sign something now, you could stitch it up, but it wouldn't be a good deal for Canada. Well, and also, what does a deal mean, right? I mean, you're dealing with Darth Vader deals here. Like, pray I do not change the deal again, right?

Like, you're, like, you're not dealing with a legitimate, like, first of all, you're not dealing with a country whose commitments will be honored. Like, they will not honor their commitments. Second of all, they could change their mind, like literally 60 seconds later, a tweet storm could end all of the agreements you've come to. And plus, you know, it's even unclear, like, when what power is doing this, right? Because, like, you have, this is supposed to be ratified by Congress. The actual power of Congress is unclear at this moment. The power of the Supreme Court to change these tariffs is also unclear.

So there's actually no real America to deal with here in the sense of a unibreable. body that can actually make a commitment to a, to a negotiation. So I assume that this would just go on forever. Like, there's no interest for them in getting to a real deal. Malcolm Turnbull, you mentioned. He is the former Prime Minister of Australia, a country that has had its own challenges with the United States and has tried to figure that. Have a listen to what Malcolm Turnbull said to you. I think the security of East Asia, of this hemisphere, where Australia is situated, really depends on the United States remaining engaged. And if the United States were to disengage, what you would see is a number of countries, Japan and South Korea, moving to acquire their own nuclear deterrent.

They would move to do that very quickly. That makes for a more unstable environment. Unstable environment is one way of putting. Well, that's, I mean, obviously we're entering a period of chaos here, right? And in that chaos, you're going to, I mean, if I were Japan, I'd be thinking about a nuclear bomb right now, right? Like, I mean, I don't think they really have a choice, right? So, yeah, and we're entering a period. They don't have a choice. Well, I don't think they have, certainly any other security guarantee. That is the ultimate security guarantee. And it's, why would you not do that when the other choices are, you know, to spend huge amounts of your GDP in a, in a situation where you have a declining population to protect yourself? I mean, I think all countries will be starting

making much more individualistic choices. And that, of course, goes incredibly for Canada. I think what's interesting in listening to this is that you came out, like listening to the first episode and how you react to Malcolm Turnbull, is that you seem a bit more optimistic coming out of it. I know. It's been a while since I've been optimistic about anything. But I do think there are certain things that are happening now that are clarifying about

where things are going. One of them is that the age of empires is over, right? Like the capacity of these hegemon's to actually project power in the world is declining very rapidly, as you can see in Russia. But also America, you know, they can't beat Iran. Right. Like they can't, their capacity to project power gets smaller every, every week, really. And then also, you know, even being conscious of the realities that we inhabit, which has been forced on us by this change, by this dream, the international liberal order breaking up, which was a way to forget about things. things. Like, once you start to see it clearly, it's actually not impossible to build things.

And certainly Canada is fully capable of rising to this moment. Like, you know, we have a, we have all the resources. We have a massively educated population. I don't think we really talk about that enough, you know. I mean, over 70% of women in this country have a tertiary education. It's a crazy number globally, right? Like, and so, and we have, I think we have, we have a lot in our corner. We do. We really do. So what does that mean that if you, say that this season is not about whether we're going to survive, but how we will win? Yeah. How do we win in this moment?

Well, I think one thing is, first of all, tons of agreements with other countries and building up trade networks with other people and just building up networks generally, which we're superb at, you know? I mean, since Carney's taken office, there's 102 deals. We have this incredible map that's coming out. That's all of the, all of the arrangements that Canada has with the rest of the world, with interactive, the Shield Institute, like it's, it's totally. And when you look at it, it's like, wow, there really is a wide-ranging networks that we can access in any given moment.

He called on middle powers to ban together. And what has been pointed out by some people is that when we as a nation were being threatened by the United States and the President, in particular, 51st state and what have you, there weren't a lot of other nations who are standing up for Canada. Do you think there's an opportunity here for those middle powers to follow what the prime minister is asking for, to ban together in the face of what's happening? Well, I mean, that was before Greenland where we were being threatened and they were like and, you know, you had the shock of trying to deal with it. The middle powers are banding together. Like that's underway. Like you can, when you listen to the episodes on defense or tech particularly or influence, like they are actually coming together to create meaningful connections that and meaningful collective strategies. I think there is always a question of whether this is a fantasy because it's never been done before.

but there's nothing quite like I think there is a very clear instinct here that any connection that you make with the American state and that includes American companies particularly American tech companies is a vulnerability right and so even that recognition makes it much easier to for for middle powers to band together we'll be right back with more of the current podcast I am an actor fresh out of theater school with big dreams and an even bigger drug habit. But things are pretty good. That is until my best friend is set up on a date with David Lee Roth. Yeah, from Van Halen. If you know, you know. From CBC's personally, this is Discount Dave and the Fix. The Truish story about how a fake rock star led me to a real trial that held up a mirror to me. And okay, let's just say that not everyone in this story is who you think they are. Personally, Discount Dave and the Fix. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things you talk about in this new season is we've been musing about digital

sovereignty and had people come on talking about digital sovereignty and trying to understand what that actually means right now. Yes, we are a digital colony. What is that? And so what does that mean? Well, that means like for, you know, the cold open we have, oh, I'm using technical talk because you're ready. But the opening interview we have in the digital sovereignty is a ICC judge who woke up

one morning and realized that her Gmail had been turned off. And all of her family photos had been, she couldn't access. Because, because the U.S. government had declared her persona non grata for prosecuting, or I don't know, it's not persona non grata,

there's some other technical term, but it's usually reserved for gangsters and terrorists, right? And she, like, she has a CD collection now, right? Like, she can't access basic things.

And if you go, again, the Canadian Shield Institute did this really wonderful thing of, like, where, what American, in your daily life, how much you're taxed by American tech companies, like buying this coffee, like, you know, going to Italy, like you're about to do the amount that is required for of American tech to do that is pretty astonishing. So is it possible to break from that?

It's definitely the hardest. You open your email, that's part of it. You don't want to, you might want a CD collection, but you'd like to just open your phone and, you know, listen to Apple music or Spotify. Can you actually break free from that? It's definitely the hardest one. Like, by far. In Europe, though, they are making pretty decent strides. Because the thing that I think is really important to remember about that whole question of the tech stack is that what you don't need, you don't need to end, you don't need to stop using Amazon web services. That's the real one that's like the power, the actual power in this world, right? And the backbone behind most websites that everybody uses.

Every company. Like, and, you know, the Europeans are realizing you don't need to stop that. what you just need to do is create an alternative so that it's not monopolistic, right? And when you create, and when you remove the monopolistic aspect of this, then the power aspect actually decreases quite a bit, right? And so even small movements on that, and of course, you know, the AI that we've done in Canada was a huge leap for us, right? And I also think, you know, very unpopular opinion, but like every data center we build in

this country for us is an act of digital sovereignty that we should consider very, like, Like the knee-jerk reaction against this is not helpful to our sovereignty. What are the stakes here? If, as you have, you've argued that the United States is really dangerous now, not because it's strong, but because it's weak. Yeah. And that it could lash out and do things while it's in a weakened position. Yeah.

So what does that mean for Canada? What are the stakes here in terms of us seizing this moment and winning in this moment? Well, I think the stakes, the, the, the stakes are chaos, right? Like chaos versus order. and we, I think we have a very strong tendency to order in this country. Like that, I think that's not a very controversial position. And, you know, one of the other, the aspects that was not really of the Davos speech that was not really talked about was when he said resiliency is the new efficiency. Right.

And we, this is actually probably the most important stake in the whole thing, which is that we've globalized and we've been eager beavers to globalization. right we're pro-immigration we're pro-free trade it was it was the I mean the liberals and the conservatives had no political distinction about it at all right the our entire lives they were both in favor of integration with the United States and that's that's come to an end so the question is how do we get resiliency for ourselves and in resiliency which is you know going to be tied very clearly in my mind to an innovation agenda like tech is the game here like tech is where we are going to preserve our sovereignty and investment in technology and creating an innovation culture, that is going to preserve our sovereignty on every level.

Economic sovereignty, cognitive sovereignty, physical sovereignty, military sovereignty. And I think that's actually going to be the challenge for Canada because we're used to being more samey, samey, and we're used to being more, you know, you're about to talk about excellence culture, right? Like, we need excellence culture to survive. Like, we were, and we, and particularly in tech, right? And so I think that's going to actually be a challenge culturally for us. Two minutes left.

Go back to where you started, which is it's been a hell of a year. Yeah. How have, I ask you this as a journalist, but you're also a novelist. You think about stories. How has the story, and this comes up in the first episode, how has the story that we tell about ourselves as a nation changed over this year? Jeez, I mean, I think that's a very hard question to ask because we're in such a turbulent moment. I mean, I really think the thing that I find interesting is that there's this old Canada and the new Canada that I described at the beginning, but it's not politically defined, right?

In no way would you say that that is a conservative position or a liberal position or even a left-right position. They actually, we found it in every institution in the country, military, a business, all of them. and totally irrelevant who people voted for. It's just can you bear to actually face the reality? And the thing I think is so interesting is that I think the division is actually inside of all of us. Like it's not just in the country. But even me who, you know, was talking about this stuff 10 years ago

that America was, you know, about to become very dangerous. There's still a part of me that thinks they'll all go back to it. Like they'll all, they'll come to their senses and we'll all go back to the way. We won't have to worry about this. And we won't have to worry about it. And there's some desperate part of me that wants to believe that even though I know from, you know, interviewing hundreds of people that it's not true. But it feels like the country's different in this moment. And it's not just World Cup fever with flags everywhere. The sense is that those flags will stay around. We matter more to global politics today. I mean, this was very obvious to me interviewing all these people in London and Australian everywhere else. We matter more in the world today than we ever have. I mean, at least since the 60s, right? At least since. And, and, I think more even than during the peacekeeping period, for sure. We have an active foreign policy whether we want it or not. We will talk again. Stephen Marsh, thank you.

Always lovely. Stephen Marsh is launching a new season of his podcast. Gloves off. It'll be available wherever you get your podcasts on Canada Today, the 1st of July. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.