Mark Carney delivers his recent speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Roaming the world in search of new allies and new markets, the Prime Minister lyrically matches words and occasion, Andrew Cohen writes.JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP/Getty Images
Andrew Cohen is a journalist, historian and author. His latest book is Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History, examining two consequential speeches of his presidency.
When Mark Carney addressed the European Parliament last week, it was a watershed in the story of Canada. Embracing Europe as a counterweight to the United States marks a hard pivot from the old world to the new. As John Ralston Saul, the philosopher and author, observed, it was a day “when understatement is foolish.”
As important as what the Prime Minister said in Strasbourg was how he said it. His speech had clarity and authority, boldness and balance, a finely tuned statement neither too much nor too little. Recalling the values shared by Canada and Europe, he found a useful metaphor in a Canadian lieutenant gathering acorns in France after the Battle of Vimy Ridge and planting a forest in Ontario. The eloquent Mr. Carney drew on history, philosophy and botany, too.
In reality, Mr. Carney’s message was less the poetry of a leafy canopy spanning the Atlantic than the prose of trade, commerce, defence, education, finance, technology and energy. A good speech moves from rhetoric to reality and back, crackling with the urgency of the moment. So it was here.
The speech is becoming Mr. Carney’s brand. Roaming the world in search of new allies and new markets, he lyrically matches words and occasion. The world noticed in Davos when he said what no one else would: that the old order is over and we have to begin again. It was the most stirring declaration of a Canadian prime minister in a generation.
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Davos and Strasbourg, which complemented each other, show a Prime Minister reviving the set speech as an instrument of persuasion, a lost art in contemporary politics. Mr. Carney is conscripting words in the trade war with the United States and deploying them as foot soldiers to rally Canadians and enlist allies. And to celebrate compassion, independence and ambition. It’s something.
Rigorous in thought, stylish in dress, Mr. Carney is as fastidious and elegant in public expression. He feels so comfortable with language he records periodic statements on YouTube called “Forward Guidance,” a less felicitous name for FDR’s “fireside chat.” Listen, and you’ll hear something distinctive in the age of soundbites, memes and emojis. It’s refreshing amid the banality, euphemism, hyperbole and falsehood swimming in the purée of platitudes.
The world noticed in Davos when Mr. Carney said what no one else would: that the old order is over and we have to begin again.FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
Unlike so many politicians, the Prime Minister is unafraid of history. Dr. Carney, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford, mines its lessons. In Strasbourg, he mentions Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German polymath who walked in a grove of trees above the city of Weimar, encircled centuries later by the barbed wire of Buchenwald, the concentration camp. It’s an effective device (which begged mention of its clutch of imprisoned Canadians, including the courageous Frank Pickersgill, who was executed there in 1944).
Then there are the turns of phrase. The morning after talks with the Americans collapsed in August, he explained, succinctly, why the United States is no longer a reliable partner: “We recognized that sometimes, its signature was written in pencil.” At Strasbourg, he mused that Canada and Europe “are not bound by geography ... We are bound by an affinity.”
In his speeches, he has quoted Thucydides, the Athenian historian; Václav Havel, the Czech dissident; Charles Taylor, the Hegelian; and cited Elie Wiesel and Irving Abella, chroniclers of the Holocaust.
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When Ken Dryden died a year ago, Mr. Carney rejected the usual clichés for the star athlete, star author and star politician. Instead, he eulogized Mr. Dryden as the quintessential Canadian. “Fewer Canadians have given more or stood taller for our country. Ken Dryden was Big Canada. And he was best Canada.”
What is striking about Mr. Carney’s speeches are their confidence and brevity. (He rarely speaks longer than 25 minutes.) Some he reportedly writes himself. Others are presumably shaped by the able Scott Gilmore, Mr. Carney’s principal secretary, who was a columnist with Maclean’s.
At root, though, the speeches reflect the Prime Minister himself. These words, thoughts and images come from him; they would not have credibility in the mouths of his leaden-tongued predecessors. Quick now, can you recall a memorable prime ministerial speech from Justin Trudeau, Stephen Harper or Paul Martin?
With Mark Carney, we can and we will. The speech has become his signature, and it’s not written in pencil.