Thursday January 22, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 11:53 pm PT]
News analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Over the years it seems that some or many Canadians have been overwhelmed by the large and powerful presence of the United States.
In many cases, people see no difference between Canadians and American other than a border (which the current President of the US has in the past year called an “artificially drawn line”).
Today in his speech ahead of a cabinet planning session, Prime Minister Mark Carney took the opportunity to remind Canadians about what makes Canadians diffrent from Americans.
“When we are Canadian – inclusive, fair, ambitious – Canada grows,” said Carney toward the end of his 26 minute speech.
“Canada and the United States have built a remarkable partnership in the economy, in security, and in a rich cultural exchange,” said Carney.
But Carney followed that with saying that Canada doesn’t “live because of the United States” (quoting Trump’s comment in a speech to the World Economic Forum yesterday in Davos, Switzerland).
“Canada thrives because we are Canadian,” said Carney today, on the heels of his resoundingly successful speech yesterday himself in Davos where he got a standing ovation from world economic leaders for stating the obvious, i.e. that it’s time to stand up to oppression that is attempted through force.
[See full official text of speech Building Canada together: Prime Minister Carney delivers remarks at the Citadelle of Québec, January 22, 2026]
Indeed, it’s long past time that our citizens stopped defining ourselves as ‘not American’. Being Canadian is a distinctive opportunity to be as much of a human being as is possible in this competitive and oftentimes harsh world.
Two rounds of applause:
Carney got two bits of spontaneous applause from his own ministers, which seemed to surprise him a bit as he addressed the room and TV cameras from a podium at the Citadelle of Quebec.
The first was “Canada cannot solve all the world’s problems. But we can show that another way is possible, that the arc of history isn’t destined to be warped toward authoritarianism and exclusion; it can still bend toward progress and justice.”
And the second was “Canada thrives because we are Canadian”.
Perhaps he wasn’t entirely sure that people were fully committed to the mission that he now finds himself in deeply — not just as a prime minister but as a leader on the world stage who is using Canada’s values and middle-power strength to reshape the world order in counterpoint to the reshaping of the world order that Trump is attempting as a major power.
After Carney’s Davos speech success (including acclaim around the globe) and today’s speech to the at-home audience, this country’s prime minister would see now that he likely has most of Canada behind his cause.
This is important in terms of domestic national politics if indeed economic strain in this country will get worse before it gets better as Canada reshapes its economic footprint through trade diversification away from dependence on the United States.
Praise from the Conservative Leader:
That includes the Official Opposition, whose Leader Pierre Poilievre issued a statement praising Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum on January 20 as “well-crafted and eloquently delivered”.
Poilievre said Carney is right to restate that Canada must become more self-reliant, less dependent and work with like-minded countries, adding that Conservatives are “as always” willing to work with the prime minister to “turn these words into results.”
Quebec factor:
Quebecers will have a new premier in a few months, in the wake of long-time Quebec Premier François Legault’s resignation last week he will remain in place until his party elects a new leader, expected around April 14).
Carney’s remarks today that included a recap on how it came to be that Canada is bilingual and respective of both the English and the French as the two incoming founding cultures (who arrived in a land where Indigenous peoples had long been), was a good starting point for his Liberal government to stand strong against any upsurge of the always-percolating sentiment about Quebec separation.
There are 44 Liberal MPs who were elected in Quebec in the April 2025 federal election. That’s 25.8 percent of the 170 Liberal seats and twice as many seats as the Bloc Québécois currently holds (all of those in Quebec).
Ontario has 70 Liberal MPs and BC has 20. The remaining 36 seats are spread across the country (11 of them in Nova Scotia).
Carney is two seats short of a Liberal majority in the House of Commons which gets back to session starting next week.
===== RELATED:
- BC Premier & federal NDP leader comment on Carney’s World Economic Forum speech (January 21, 2026)
- Carney’s speech to economic elite makes global headlines (January 21, 2026)
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