At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney was the adult in the room. In his speech he told the world that the American-led, rules-based international order — the foundation for the prosperity and security of liberal democracies for 80 years — is over.

His remarks were, in some ways, a bookend to Winston Churchill’s famous 1946 “Iron Curtain speech” in Fulton, Missouri, which called on the West, led by the United States and Britain, to collectively confront the menace of Soviet communism. The global order that Carney pronounced dead in Davos was arguably born in Fulton.

For Canadians, the implicit message is that the bedrock assumption underpinning our public-policy architecture — that we willingly accept a very high degree of dependence on the United States for economic prosperity and national defence — has come to an end. The implication is a need for national resolve and tough choices.

Carney has declared that Canadians are “under no illusions” and must prepare for sacrifices. He has yet to say what those sacrifices will be. 

Complacency is our greatest risk in the world the prime minister has described.

This complacency is evident among Canadian businesses. Export-oriented firms have been deeply embedded in the U.S. market for decades, cemented by successive trade agreements stretching back to the 1965 Auto Pact. That dependence was a deliberate........

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