The challenges ahead for Prime Minister Carney – and for us

The challenges ahead for PM Mark Carney – and for us

Carney knows that the UN must be brought back into play as a place where the global security problems involving climate change and nuclear weapons can be solved. – Doug Roche

As the dust settles on Canada’s truly extraordinary 2025 federal election, the focus of our blog post today is an inspirational call to action by one of Canada’s most beloved champions of peace and human security — Douglas Roche, O.C.

Appearing in The Hill Times on 29 April 2025, Doug Roche’s commentary focuses not just on the massive challenge Carney faces in his “main job” of fighting off Trump, but also on his response to pressing global challenges. [Available HERE in PDF format.]

Roche reminds us that the trade war launched by United States President Donald Trump is not the only war Carney faces:

there are the relentless wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the war against migrants, the war against poverty, the war against the planet itself. The route to Carney’s success at home lies through raising the stature of our country in a tumultuous war-torn world now desperately trying to hold itself together.

Kananaskis, Alberta G7 Summit on June 15–17

[A Mark Carney government will] Use Canada’s G7 Presidency to catalyze action in defence of our values, including working to protect the rules-based international order from those who want to destroy it. – Liberal Campaign Platform 2025

Roche writes of the opportunity afforded by Canada’s G7 presidency in 2025:

As host, Carney is charged with steering the agenda to strengthen international peace and security, build global economic stability and growth, advance the digital transition, and otherwise find “shared solutions” to today’s global challenges.

RI President Peggy Mason comments:

A consensus communique is the norm, but these are not normal times. Trump’s concurrence cannot come at the price of essential global norms.

A beleaguered world is taking note

Roche cites an April 3^rd campaign statement in Ottawa by Mark Carney:

Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values…. We believe in international co-operation. We believe in the free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas. And if the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will.

Turning to the international response, Roche writes:

News agency Reuters reported the morning after the election that Carney is “positioning himself for a global role as a champion of multilateralism” against Trump’s protectionist policies. The first person to lead two G7 central banks has the experience to earn immediate international credibility.

To the above, we would add the 25 April editorial endorsement by The Economist of Mark Carney for Prime Minister of Canada:

On April 28th Canada goes to the polls. Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party is feisty and impressive, but you probably won’t be surprised to learn that The Economist believes Mark Carney, a former central banker and the leader of the Liberal Party, would make a better prime minister.

In the view of The Economist:

the extraordinary shake-up of Canadian politics … both illuminates the effects of the trade war on politics and offers a blueprint for centre-left parties to escape toxic culture wars. It holds lessons for democratic politics everywhere.

Arguing that the lessons for other countries include the “primacy of economics amid the trade war” and the importance of eschewing “the swamp of identity politics,” the Economist editorial concludes:

on the eve of its election, Canada offers a welcome reminder of the power of the rule of law, the importance of economic growth and the value of patriotism.

Finally a full-scale foreign policy review

According to the Liberal Campaign Platform 2025, a Mark Carney-led government will:

• Restore Canada’s diplomatic presence abroad through a new, full foreign policy. The last time Canada issued a full foreign policy was in 2005 – the world is immensely different today than it was then. The intention is to deploy more Canadian diplomats and officials abroad, to expand our trade, and to restore Canadian leadership.
• We will also issue a complementary national security review. 

Roche writes:

Such a full-scale [foreign policy] review has not been done since 2005. It is urgent to assert Canada’s sovereignty by strengthening Arctic security, and fostering better relations with Indigenous Peoples.

What about the Liberal promise to further increase defence spending?

significant expenditures in the [Liberal] party’s four-year plan include a pledge to increase existing defence spending by $18 billion in order to meet the two per cent NATO spending target. – CBC news

But Roche is more skeptical of the Carney promise to raise our defence budget to NATO’s target of two percent of GDP by 2030. He urges the Prime Minister to resist going higher, drawing attention to figures just released by the Stockholm International Institute for Peace and Security that:

NATO spending is 55 per cent of global military spending now at the astronomical annual level of $2.7-trillion….

He adds:

Enough with military spending as the way to global peace.

Investments for sustainable development and climate goal financing

A better approach, Roche argues, is found in the Liberal platform promises for “increased funding to accelerate progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals” and to boost the international climate finance program, writing:

As a former United Nations adviser at the highest levels, Carney knows that the UN must be brought back into play as a place where the global security problems involving climate change and nuclear weapons can be solved.

Roche further argues that,

By using his prestigious G7 position, Carney can leverage Canada’s weight in calling for reform and expansion of the Security Council. That move alone would lessen Trump’s influence on the political and financial systems of the world and be a direct benefit to Canada.

We would add that the UN Summit of the Future saw many strong proposals for Security Council reform put forward, not least not least by the UN Secretary-General himself. All can be stymied by the veto power of each of the Security Council’s five permanent members.

RI President Peggy Mason comments:

Perhaps a more fruitful approach in the near term is an ongoing initiative entitled “Legal Limits to the Veto in the Face of Atrocity Crimes,” in support of the UN General Assembly seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”), on a question such as:  is unrestrained veto use while genocide, crimes against humanity, and/or war crimes are ongoing consistent with international law?

In the conclusion to his clarion call to action, Doug Roche writes:

Carney’s moment in leading world affairs has come. As a pragmatist, he knows how to beat the bully Trump. In facing outward, the 24th and now 25th Canadian prime minister will hold Canada together as a sovereign nation.

The role of Canadian NGOs will be pivotal

Roche writes in his article that the Liberal government, while not having an “ironclad majority,” nonetheless has a de facto working majority. Since then, in his first post-election press conference on 1 May, Prime Minister Carney made it clear that he would not be entering a formal pact with the NDP to “maintain the minority government”.  CTV News further reports that

The prime minister said he wants to work constructively with other parties and praised Canadians for sticking with the democratic process as democracies face strains elsewhere.

In our view, one additional point needs to be highlighted. Given the substantially depleted NDP ranks in the House of Commons, most of the criticism of government policy will come from the hard right (with some potentially important mitigation from the centre-left Bloc Québécois).

Ceasefire.ca comments:

The voices of progressive NGOs from across Canada will be pivotal in support of a Canadian foreign policy that champions a Palestinian state, a sustainable Ukraine peace deal, a return to arms control and diplomatic trust building, and astute leadership on global regulation of AI, all underpinned by an unwavering commitment to the full and equal application of international law.

(For a searing critique of the failure of Western countries, including Canada, to practice what they preach when it comes to fundamental principles of international law, see Rules for Others: Selective Outrage, Silent Complicity, and an Alarming Lack of Principled Leadership (Cesar Jaramillo, Project Ploughshares, 28 April 2025).)

More on this in the coming weeks!

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Images, Policy Exchange (Mark Carney)