Photo: Prime Minister Mark Carney speaking at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Source: “World Economic Forum Annual Meeting” by World Economic Forum, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The world reacts to Mark Carney’s declaration at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that, “the old order is not coming back” in spite of neoliberalism being largely responsible for its decline. At the 2016 Progress Summit, Ed Broadbent was prescient in stating, “if a blind faith in unfettered markets continues to prevail, I believe the social foundation for our democracies will continue to be shaken.”
To defend democracy and sovereignty, we need internationalism grounded in social and economic rights. On the old order, Ed thought that as social democrats:
We see social democracy as the sum of the values embedded in the United Nations system of human rights as found in the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Covenant on Cultural, Economic and Social Rights; and Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada is signatory to both of these Covenants and has adopted the Declaration, but the promise of all three remains unfulfilled.
Ed Broadbent, Broadbent Principles for Canadian Social Democracy
The old order was built on the principles of social democracy as a hope for a better tomorrow, and neoliberalism killed that hope. It’s up to progressives to re-envision how we defend democracy in Canada and abroad.
A new special issue of Perspectives Journal no. 5 examines this political project at a crossroads. While threats to sovereignty are forcing Canadians to ask how we can defend democracy across borders, contributors like Broadbent Fellow Jennifer Pedersen shares a vision for a social democratic Canadian foreign policy.
“As social democrats,” Pedersen says, “we aim to build solidarity and global justice with like-minded people around the world. But we need to hold tightly to the international institutions and norms that Canadians have helped to build over decades. Globally, the UN system and international law are some of the few places we can look to create and maintain support and to build solidarity with others in a way that actually creates results for people. […]
We need to uphold the core progressive values that Ed Broadbent and others in our movement have articulated — cooperation, trade unionism, working for the public good, global consciousness, solidarity, feminism, [and] indigenous rights.
Jennifer Pedersen
“There is no question that over the past few years we have seen a horrific backsliding by many governments when it comes to the ‘rules-based’ international order.
“In Canada, it has been so disheartening to see the Liberals abandon the very principles that they helped to create. Former Liberal Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy was instrumental in developing the Ottawa Treaty and the Rome Statute. To see his successors backsliding on support for the International Criminal Court is horrifying. This government is choosing to defend the human rights of some people but not others. The principle of universality has been eroded under the Liberals. […]
“The problems we are facing globally need to be addressed with a whole-of-government approach that tackles root causes of insecurity — not by fuelling insecurity through cuts to services, aid, and peacebuilding. We need to uphold the core progressive values that Ed Broadbent and others in our movement have articulated — cooperation, trade unionism, working for the public good, global consciousness, solidarity, feminism, [and] indigenous rights.”
Read her full interview in Perspectives Journal no. 5 and register for the 2026 Progress Summit: Defending Democracy Across Borders. We’ll hear from those defending democracy in Canada, and from our progressive allies abroad, for lessons and answers on how to do just that.