Why Carney’s Flight Hours Will Likely Increase Next Year
Canada is building a web, and one strand is not enough.
Why is Carney in Ireland?
It is not huge. It is not small.
But when you build a web, more strands add to its weight.
That is the strategy underneath Mark Carney’s foreign policy moves. The European Union as a whole, yes. But also every European country as its own point of contact. It reminds me of something the elders would say in my hometown.
Don’t look up. Don’t look down. Treat them straight.
The point is simple. You don’t bend over backwards because someone is strong or powerful. You hold your ground. You also don’t treat someone like an afterthought because you think you are stronger than them. You deal with them while holding your balance.
That is easy to say and difficult to practice, because the human reflex is often the opposite. People look up at power and over-adjust. They look down at weakness and under-adjust. The imbalance has a direct line to confidence. The higher your confidence, the more balanced you feel. And paradoxically, the more balanced you are, the higher your confidence becomes.
That is one of the ideas behind Carney’s variable geometry.
Ireland is not Germany. Ireland is not Japan, India, Australia, or Indonesia. But Ireland is also not irrelevant, especially as it prepares to take over the EU Council presidency at a crucial time for Canada.
From Canada’s perspective, this is the stretch where relationship-building carries unusual weight. The United States is heading toward the midterms. Trade decisions, tariff pressure, security posture, and alliance behavior will all be influenced by American domestic politics. After the election, the Trump administration could assume a new posture in any direction.
That means Canada cannot afford to wait passively for Washington to decide the terms of the next phase. It has to strengthen its position before the next shock arrives.
So Carney going to Ireland is not strange. It fits the design.
A good relationship with the incoming EU Council presidency is useful. And Carney playing up his Irish roots is not mysterious. It is politics. It is diplomacy. It is relationship-building. Why not?
The deeper question is whether variable geometry and a middle-power coalition can really work.
They are not the same thing, though they can feel similar.
