There is a specific, rarefied brand of oxygen deprivation that only occurs at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is not caused by the altitude of the Swiss Alps, but by the sheer density of self-important bloviation concentrated in a single zip code. It is here, amidst the scent of thousand-dollar-an-hour escorts and private jet exhaust, that the guardians of the status quo gather to mourn the status quo. This year’s funeral dirge was led by none other than Mark Carney, the perennial central banker-in-waiting, who joined the Canadian delegation to warn us that the 'world order' is experiencing a 'rupture.' One might call it a revelation, had it not been obvious to anyone who hasn't spent the last decade staring at a Bloomberg terminal from the comfort of a mahogany-paneled office.

The premise of Carney’s warning—and the subtext of the Canadian government’s performance—is that the 'unfettered great powers' are making a mess of things. This is Davos-speak for 'the Americans and the Chinese are no longer following the script we wrote for them in 1995.' The rupture isn’t just a policy disagreement; it is a fundamental breakdown of the neoliberal dream where everyone agrees to let a small group of technocrats manage the world’s decline in exchange for consistent dividends. Carney, ever the architect of 'responsible' capitalism, suggests that 'middle powers' like Canada can build a new order. It is a charming, if entirely delusional, sentiment. It’s the equivalent of a golden retriever offering to mediate a territorial dispute between two famished grizzly bears.

Justin Trudeau’s government, represented by this nervous energy, is currently grappling with the reality that their brand of performative progressivism is a luxury good that the rest of the world can no longer afford. For years, the Canadian strategy has been to offer the world moral lectures wrapped in maple syrup, assuming that 'the world order' would protect their trade interests. But as Carney pointed out without naming the orange elephant in the room, the 'unfettered' nature of modern great powers—specifically a looming American populism and a Chinese state that has stopped pretending to like us—has left the middle powers shivering in the cold. The irony is thick enough to choke on: the very people who spent decades hollowed out their own domestic manufacturing and energy independence in the name of global integration are now horrified that the 'globe' doesn’t want to be 'integrated' on their terms anymore.

Carney’s speech was a masterclass in the art of the 'not-mention.' By refusing to name Donald Trump or the specific existential threats to Canadian trade, he engaged in the kind of high-level cowardice that defines modern diplomacy. They call it 'strategic ambiguity'; I call it a refusal to admit the fire is hot while your sleeves are currently melting. The 'rupture' Carney speaks of is not a sudden accident; it is the inevitable collapse of an ossified system that prioritized the flow of capital over the stability of communities. The 'order' they are so desperate to save was never a moral framework; it was a logistics network for the elite. Now that the logistics are failing and the great powers are choosing national interest over globalist platitudes, the technocrats are panicking.

What, exactly, does Canada propose to do? Build a 'new order' with other middle powers? It is a fantasy of the highest degree. A coalition of the polite and the powerless will not stop the tectonic shifts of global hegemony. The 'rupture' is already here, and it’s not a gap that can be bridged by more Davos panels or thoughtful white papers. It is a fundamental realignment of reality. The global elite are like passengers on the Titanic who are currently arguing that they could fix the hole in the hull if only the iceberg would agree to a more sustainable, multilateral approach to collision.

Trudeau and Carney represent the final gasp of a 20th-century idealism that believes words are a substitute for power. They warn of a world without rules, failing to realize that the rules were always an illusion maintained by the strength of the very 'great powers' they now decry. As the world moves into an era of raw competition and unapologetic national interest, the Canadian delegation is left standing in the Swiss snow, holding a rulebook that no one else is reading. It would be tragic if it weren’t so predictable. The 'world order' isn't rupturing; it is simply being exposed for what it always was: a temporary agreement among the strong that the weak were allowed to mistake for justice. Now that the strong are bored with the game, the 'middle powers' are discovering that their seat at the table was actually just a high chair.