Alan Zendell, December 29, 2025

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat for a year-end interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company addressing his brief tenure as PM. It’s twenty-four minutes long, and well worth listening to, especially if after watching Donald Trump’s version of 2025, you’re wondering if the entire world is losing its mind. If you can spare an additional half hour, I nrecommend George Conway’s analysis of the interview, and what it implies about Canada’s relationship with and attitude toward the United States.

I listened to Carney’s interview, first. The PM was straightforward and easy to understand. He is highly intelligent and well-informed about the issues facing Canada. He didn’t pull numbers out of the air, exaggerate, deflect responsibility, or seem the least bit angry or defensive, even when the tough, unrelenting interviewer pressed him on uncomfortable issues. He didn’t call her a pig, didn’t refer to his political opponents as enemies, and didn’t hurl insults at anyone. He didn’t ramble. He wasn’t incoherent. He addressed every question calmly and rationally.

When a prominent leader makes an important speech, I generally find it annoying that it’s immediately followed by network talking heads explaining what I just listened to. Conway’s analysis, however, is not like that. I found what he said nuanced and worth listening to.

Carney talked about Canada’s long term “junior partner” status and dependency relative to the United States, but he wasn’t accusatory, explaining that that’s just how the relationship between our countries evolved, without any negative agenda. Both he and Conway noted that the relationship worked well in the eighty years since World War 2, because it was in both nations’ mutual interest and both economies benefitted from it. It was based on trust and predictability, something both Americans and Canadiana believed was the normal way close allies treat each other – who has been a closer and more trusted ally than Canada?

Trump has treated Canada the same way he treated the rest of the world, accusing them of ripping us off and alternating between offensive derision and flattery as his ego perceived whether he was being addressed with sufficient respect and obeisance. His transactional approach to everything, however, undercut the basic trust that existed between our countries. Trump’s approach to Canada and every other nation except Russia has been to declare that America can dictate economic terms to everyone else, while changing those terms on mere whims whenever he feels like it. Trump considers all that a brilliant negotiating strategy, because he believes it keeps everyone else divided and on the defensive. His tough guy act, however, serves only Trump’s own narcissism.

For everyone else, it defines America as unreliable and untrustworthy, and without being at all negative, Carney made that point in several ways. He talked about Canada becoming more independent, which Conway explained in detail meant not allowing itself to remain overly dependent on America. He talked intelligently about energy independence and how that relates to climate change and Canada’s commitment reducing carbon emissions. He talked about expanding trade relationships with Asia and Europe which would make Canada stronger. Carney didn’t say it, but Conway explained that a strong, independent Canada would likely hurt America’s economy, first because some much of our automotive, steel, AI, rare earth mineral, and aerospace industries are interconnected, but more importantly, Canada intends to become a major trading partner with the rest of the world, and will not let negotiating deals with Trump dominate its future.

With no rancor toward the United States, Carney laid out his plan to make Canada stronger in the future. It’s about Canada’s survival and sovereignty. Carney knows what all of us know deep down. We all have to be self-reliant and never allow our survival to depend on someone else. Even if that someone else has been a reliable trustworthy friend for decades, nations aren’t people and diplomacy and trade agreements are not friendships. As we’ve seen this year, nations can change overnight. Your bigger, stronger neighbor upon you’ve relied for protections and economic stability, who the entire world has looked to for leadership isn’t what it was a year ago.

A personality like Donald Trump can completely upend a world order that has survived an eighty-year-old nuclear arms race. One thing Conway noted was that Canada remains part of the “coalition of the willing” who support Ukraine against Russian aggression, while Trump has removed America from it. This is a profound statement that historians will reflect on as a major inflection point, but Carney needn’t wait for the history books. He already understands its significance, and that requires Canada to effect a fundamental restructuring of its relationship with us.

I can’t lie about this. When I hear Donald Trump spew hate every time he opens his mouth and then I listen to Mark Carney, Trump seems like a monster who is out of control, and Carney sounds like the leader all of North America needs.