The world’s super powers have been making a meal of the Global South for some time. But the idea that ‘if you’re not at the table then you’re on the menu’ – a widely quoted line from Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech in January – is not an invitation for the world’s majority to take a seat at his dinner table.
In his address, Carney declared a ‘rupture’ in the post-war world order, and called on ‘middle powers’ like Canada, its European allies and Britain (though politicians in Westminster would be loath to admit this diminished status) to ‘act together’. The Liberal leader has since enjoyed a surge in popularity for what has been dubbed a radical ‘anti-Trump’ speech, and applauded as a rare criticism of US hegemony.
