Mark Carney speaks at the Global Progress Summit
(Toronto) Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada must create new institutions and rethink old ones to address the concerns facing citizens and governments in the modern era.
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Mr. Carney made the remarks during a speech at the closing of the Global Summit on Action for Progress 2026 in Toronto, attended by Ministers Anita Anand, Mélanie Joly and François-Philippe Champagne, as well as American and European politicians, current and retired, including Pete Buttigieg and Magdalena Andersson.
Carney says people’s sense of loss of control over the cost of living crisis, immigration and artificial intelligence has fueled a “politics of resentment” that divides people around the world.
These new challenges require new solutions, Carney argued, touching on themes he raised at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he argued that the rules-based international order was no longer working and that middle-power countries needed to form new coalitions.
The Prime Minister quoted Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan as saying that the current “age of anxiety” is about “trying to do today’s work with yesterday’s tools.”
He clarified that Canada does not claim to have all the answers, but that his government has worked to promote modern solutions, such as the search for trade agreements in Europe and beyond in the face of American customs duties, and the creation of the Canada House agency, which aims to build thousands of housing units on land belonging to the federal state.
Mr Carney said the Government’s approach includes a willingness to accept harsh realities, such as using all energy sources, “including some gas”, while working towards cleaner, more affordable energy systems.
He also highlighted the Liberals’ recently announced sovereign wealth fund, which he said will finance the country’s development projects while giving ordinary Canadians who invest in it a share of the profits.
“We have to take risks again,” Carney said. Because in times of crisis, fortune favors the bold. »
He added that the challenges of the day have been seized by politicians who seek to destroy and dismantle, and progressives must respond by building.
“We cannot match them by merely imitating them timidly. We cannot respond to them by regretting an old order that will not return,” he said. “We can only respond to it with positive action, by building what will come afterwards. »
The Global Progress Action Summit, which hosted former US President Barack Obama at a private event on Friday, brings together progressive leaders and thinkers, according to think tanks Canada 2020 and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which organized the event.
