Ecological economists have warned for decades that global trade accelerates environmental collapse. The crisis we are living in is the result of ignoring them, writes Laurie Adkin. Image courtesy the Hampton Institute.

“We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.”

This statement, made last week by Mark Carney during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been celebrated the world over as a belated acknowledgement that the so-called “rules-based international order” is mostly a fiction that gives cover to the use of force by powerful states.

But his remark also confesses what Canada’s foreign policy has long been: a performance of virtue that, in effect, enables injustice. For decades, Canadian governments have cloaked alignment with US imperial priorities in the language of multilateralism and “shared values” while turning a blind eye toward the violence and suffering those priorities produce.

According to Carney, the new goals can be summed up as, “Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights.”

“Principled” and “consistent” are precisely what Canadian foreign policy under the Liberals has not been. Will that change now? Critically, when Carney mentioned “global problems,” including violations of sovereignty in Ukraine and Greenland, there was no mention of Palestine, Venezuela, or Iran.

Carney plays well-used cards when he posits a balance between “values and interests,” or principles and pragmatism. In reality, values and interests often conflict. When will the principles of respect for sovereignty, international law, and human rights be subordinated to “interests,” and whose interests will these be? What are Carney’s red lines? Why has he “stood firm” only in relation to the sovereignty of Ukraine and Greenland, while abetting or condoning the worst imaginable travesties of justice committed by the “global hegemon” across the Global South?

If Carney is truly signalling a break from that tradition, the test will be actions, including the immediate imposition of full sanctions on Israel, termination of economic partnership negotiations with the UAE, opposition to US intervention in Venezuela and Iran, and an embargo on Canadian arms exports to the US that are being used against civilians.

Turning to Carney’s comments about the world economic order, we see that—despite his reference to Thucydides—the prime minister has a short historical memory. Great powers have always used economic weapons, whether these were protectionism, forced free trade (gunboat diplomacy), imperial zones of control, unilateral sanctions intended to overthrow governments, or the structural adjustment agreements imposed by the International Monetary Fund on countries in the Global South. None of these are only “recent.”

Carney now acknowledges that “economic integration” has always been a system of “subordination” and that........

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