With his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney positioned Canada as an economic force that could help lift all middle-power states. Now investors from around the world want to know what the country has to offer.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.
Canada has the world’s attention. We shouldn’t squander it. This country is the bearer of truth in 2026, holding a torch up to the dark corners of President Donald Trump’s White House where troubling and bizarre trade pronouncements are formulated then sprayed across Truth Social.
Weaponizing economic integration to coerce long-standing trading partners into one-sided deals favouring the U.S. is not okay, and it isn’t going to be all right unless something is done to guard against it. Prime Minister Mark Carney was the first to say it clearly, and offer a compelling alternative in his Davos, Switzerland, speech last month.
He placed this country at the centre of a middle-power revolt and positioned Canada as an economic force that could help lift all middle-power states. Investors from around the world want to know what we have to offer. Our answer? Canada is “Where Bold Feels At Home.” What?
Carney, Trump and the week at Davos that marked the decline of the West
This is the branding that Invest Canada, the single-window, federal agency responsible for marketing this country, peddles to global investors at this moment when Ottawa estimates U.S. tariffs “will wipe $50-billion from our economy.” The pitiful slogan from 2024 champions “Global market access. Low costs. Rich in resources. Abundant talent. Stability.”
It was updated in December to include “clean energy incentives” on Invest Canada’s YouTube channel. The “Where Bold Feels at Home” video has just over 200 views.
Invest Canada’s branding suggests nobody at the government agency has read the news in at least a year. Its stale dated campaign reveals a complete lack of agility to seize this moment for the opportunity it presents.
When the Prime Minister speaks of our country, as he did in in January, he points to Canada as “an ambitious nation of builders and explorers. We mapped the continent before the Americans had even left St. Louis. We built a transcontinental railway in five years. The St. Lawrence Seaway in four.”
Standing beside the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, in November, Mr. Carney talked of unlocking “the full potential of Alberta’s energy resources” and Ottawa’s commitment to enabling a “clear and efficient approval process for a new, private sector constructed and financed pipeline.”
Two weeks before that the Prime Minister addressed the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, highlighting his government’s budget objectives, which include “boosting our productivity to drive lasting prosperity” and “diversifying our trade partners abroad to create more opportunity and greater independence.”
At the centre of Mr. Carney’s rebranding of the country’s value proposition is that our “economic strength is underpinned by Canadian energy” and that this country “has a tremendous opportunity to be the world’s leading energy superpower, in both clean and conventional energy.”
Opinion: Mark Carney delivered hard truths at Davos. Canadians deserve to hear the same
A LNG (liquified natural gas) carrier ship docked at an export facility in Kitimat, B.C.Jesse Winter/Reuters
This isn’t political hyperbole. Canada’s Natural Resources Minister, Tim Hodgson, recently returned from India where he was assured that country would take as much Canadian crude as we could supply. There is no reason to doubt India will.
Canada is Japan’s liquefied natural gas partner of choice to support that country’s energy security. China is already one of the largest importers of Canadian crude and South Korea is both an investor in Canadian LNG and importer of our crude oil. Other Pacific-region countries such as Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaysia present promising markets.
Across the Atlantic, Germany and Poland have been clear that they see Canadian LNG as an opportunity to meet their energy needs as does the European Union more generally.
What the “energy superpower” brand offers Canada is that chance to use the energy trade as a bridge to facilitate other high-value trading ventures, drawing in foreign direct investment (FDI) to support the growth of those business opportunities while reducing dependence on the U.S.
Opinion: The hard truths Mark Carney left unsaid in Davos
The story of Canadian business is very much that of a staple trade leading to bigger and greater development. The Atlantic fishery was the original Canadian business. That expanded to include the fur trade. Then came the wharves, warehouses, merchants and their networks to the old world and the Caribbean. Farmers, grocers, builders, clerks, bankers and innovators followed.
So did U.S. FDI, which in today’s modern Canada amounts to about 45.5 per cent of all FDI. That is now under pressure because of Mr. Trump.
This country needs to counter that economic dependency. It helps when we promote a compelling Canada brand internationally, one that reflects our purpose in this moment as a country, a purpose many other states welcome. That is Invest Canada’s job.
If the federal agency needs some ideas to move the process along, here’s a start: How about “Canada – Power Up!”