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By Douglas Roche, self-published, 2026.
Reviewed by Dr. Arnd Jurgensen.
One of the greatest benefits I have experienced from being involved in the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons is meeting people like Douglas Roche. He is truly an inspiring figure, with a long history as a journalist and writer, a parliamentarian, and an activist. His dedication to the causes he champions is relentless and evident in every conversation you have with him. Even in his advanced years, he is tireless in his advocacy and writing.
One of the qualities he embodies that I most admire is his ability to maintain his optimism in the face of even the most dire circumstances, and his willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume their best intentions. This ability was on display in the first of his books that I reviewed, written shortly after the election of Joseph Biden to the presidency in 2020. Most of us remember the sigh of relief we felt at the return of a more “normal” president who promised that “America is back.”
Roche had high hopes for the incoming Biden administration and described Biden as a progressive who “gets it,” who would return the U.S. to its tradition of support for international law and the UN, and who would live up to the U.S. international commitments on climate, just to mention a few. I am certain that the actual record of the Biden administration must have been a deep disappointment to him, as it was to many of us. I say this not to paint Roche as naïve but to commend him for avoiding even a hint of cynicism after his many years of activism.
His most recent book, Values/Chaos: Discovering Mark Carney and Canada’s Role in a Ruptured World, is in this regard similar to his earlier assessment of Mr. Biden.
It is less a conventional book than a collection of essays written between Carney’s gaining the leadership of the Liberal Party and the summer of 2026. As such, it is a fascinating window into the evolution of Roche’s thoughts about our new prime minister. The first few chapters, written before Carney assumed the office of prime minister, deftly demonstrate the national crisis Carney confronted upon taking office. The explicit threat to Canadian sovereignty articulated by Trump was certainly unprecedented.
These early chapters are full of optimism in describing the impressive experience Carney brought to his new position. Roche points to the lofty principles Carney articulated in critiquing “market fundamentalism” in the book he wrote during the COVID crisis, to demonstrate Carney’s ability to go beyond his technocratic background as a central banker and to grasp the importance of concepts like “human security” and the need for a transition to a sustainable future. Carney appeared to be both principled and pragmatic enough to rise to the crisis he was to confront as prime minister. He was the right man to push the country in the right direction at this crucial juncture in Canadian history. Carney’s speech in Davos seemed to verify this assessment, as it propelled him into international celebrity status with its apparent call to “middle powers” to come to the defense of international law.
While impressed with the pace of Carney’s international engagements upon taking office and the successes he had in reaching agreements to diversify the Canadian economy away from its dependence on the U.S., Roche increasingly registers an element of disappointment as Carney appears to abandon his principles. A stark indication of this transformation was Carney’s self-described shift in emphasis from “the strength of our values” to “the value of our strength” to argue for increased investment in the military. Far from defending international law, the UN, or the notions of “common security” on which the UN Charter is based, Carney appeared to embrace a very conventional understanding of “national security” based on the old approach of “peace through strength.” His assent to the goal of spending 5% of Canada’s GDP on defence (a 150% increase over the 2% Canada reached in 2026 for the first time) and his willingness to sign on to the dubious “golden dome” missile defence project made this clear. Was this an abandonment of principle, or pragmatism necessitated by the accusation that Canada was not living up to U.S. expectations in defending the Arctic?
Then came his “nation-building” projects that included, among other industrial initiatives, a commitment to expanding the oil and gas sector through the building of more pipelines, which seemed to run counter to his much-vaunted reputation as an advocate for climate action. This could also be read as a pragmatic retreat from principle, necessitated by the external threats from the Trump administration and the internal threat to national unity represented by the Alberta separatist movement.
Perhaps the biggest blows came in Canada’s response to the blatant violations of international law by the U.S. Far from gathering “middle powers” in the UN to confront a rogue U.S., the silence of Canada in the face of blatant violations of international law in the form of extrajudicial murder of suspected “narco-terrorists” and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife from Venezuela signified an abandonment of the principles articulated in Davos. Carney commending Trump’s decision to join Israel in launching a war of aggression against Iran, even if he later attempted to walk it back, was beyond the pale. Of course, it could be argued that this too was a pragmatic necessity to avoid provoking the wrath of a clearly unhinged president, but if so, the reputational damage to Canada in the eyes of many “middle powers” will take years to repair.
If these departures from principle, as explained by Carney, reflect a pragmatic recognition “that progress is always incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values,” Roche, to his credit, doesn’t buy it. “Is it not both principled and pragmatic in today’s dangerous world to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of nuclear weapons? To retain the commitments Canada made in the Paris Agreement on climate change? To hold defense spending to a reasonable level…? To maintain international development assistance? To follow the strict code of the international Arms Trade Treaty? All these are examples of fusing principles and pragmatism in a time of urgency.” (p. 115)
Roche is correct to point out that to achieve a world of peace and justice it is not NATO that needs to be shored up but the UN. It is not too late for Carney to correct his course. A good start toward doing so would be for him to read this book.