Canada PM Mark Carney on Standing Up

In the Canadian language, it’s called “elbows up.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed world leaders at the Davos economic summit on Tuesday, the day before the whiner-in-chief launched into his parade of boasts and grievances before the same body. All the press attention immediately focused on the whiner and his demand for Greenland in place of the Nobel Peace Prize. While the whiner is getting all of the media attention, Carney’s is the speech you should read, and the words you should heed.

Carney has consistently stood up against the overreach of the 47 administration. Early on, he warned that the aggressive actions of the U.S. toward Canada and its other allies was not merely a blip in the U.S. – Canada relationship, but represented a profound change the geopolitical order. And he returned to that point on Tuesday:

“Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.”1

Although Carney’s focus was on politics at the world level, his speech contained a very important call to action, not just for the other “middle powers” countries like Canada. His words should ring in the ears of everyone who recognizes the authoritarian takeover unfolding in the U.S.

In his speech, Carney referenced Czech dissident Václav Havel’s essay, The Power of the Powerless, written in 1978 and circulated underground in defiance of the Communist regime.2 Havel asked a simple question, said Carney. “How did the communist system sustain itself?”

Here’s Carney, quoting Havel:

His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway – to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.

Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.

It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

It’s time for ordinary people in this country to take their old signs down and pick up new ones. It’s time to stop living the lie that that everything is normal, that our democracy will survive on its own, and that it will happen without our willingness to take risks to preserve it.

On January 20, 2026, over 70 people joined us on the Brier Creek corner to pick up new signs and stand up for democracy. We’re there every Tuesday afternoon. Join us.

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LOCATION: Public right of way, NE corner Glenwood & Brier Creek Pkwy (near Starbucks, Red Robin, in Walmart shopping center). We’ll be on the elevated grassy area along Glenwood, away from the traffic, and along the sidewalk on Brier Creek Parkway.

PARKING: Park in the adjacent shopping center parking lots but please spread out so we don’t take all the spaces nearest these businesses. They have been very tolerant of our presence; let’s keep it that way.

SIGNS: The grassy knoll area along Glenwood is elevated and safely away from traffic, giving us great visibility along and across the intersection. Don’t have a sign? We have a bunch to share!

BE KIND: This is a peaceful, non-violent demonstration. That extends to avoiding any negative interactions with passers-by. Any rude gestures or angry words should be met with a smile and a wave – and never returned in kind.