Carson Jerema: Is Carney leader of the Trump 'resistance' or an inanimate carbon rod? |
Canadian prime ministers are always trying, and failing, to push back against American power
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This week Mark Carney applied for the job he really wants: leader of a new “rules-based international order” centred around “middle powers.” It is pretty much the same job that every Canadian prime minister, chafing at American power, has wanted. John Diefenbaker bristled at U.S. expectations that Canada host nuclear weapons, or support its Latin America strategy, and so hoped the British Commonwealth of Nations could exist as almost a rival to the United Nations. Pierre Trudeau embarrassed Richard Nixon by normalizing relations with China first, and Paul Martin oversaw the creation of the G20. Justin Trudeau, of course, tried to lecture the world about how Canada could lead the way on lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
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Yet, now that Carney is making a similar play for similar reasons as his predecessors, much of the western media is swooning as if he discovered fire and we are all tasting cooked steak for the first time. He has been described variously as “meeting the moment,” the leader of the “resistance” and even as “Churchillian.” An American conservative writer posted on X that Carney was a “pretty big upgrade” on Trudeau.
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