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Defining Canada: Mark Carney in the Tradition of Canadian Prime Ministerial Rhetoric

Wednesday April 15, 2026, 1:00 - 2:00 pm ET |

Speaker: Dr. Raymond Blake, Professor, History, University of Regina

Since confederation, prime ministers have created narratives and stories based on a series of unifying national ideas that have been reformulated and expanded over time to keep Canada, a geographically large, ethnically diverse, and regionalized nation, together. This paper shows how prime ministers were identity entrepreneurs: regardless of political stripe, they worked to build national unity, forged a citizenship based on inclusion, and defined a place for Canada in the world. Collectively, they told a national story of Canada as a progressive liberal state with a fundamental belief in universal rights and freedoms. Mark Carney has continued that tradition, resurrecting earlier narratives about Canada’s place in the world, hope for an economic union, and rekindling a sense of identity that has been weakened in the previous decade. The challenge for him is to build a narrative of Canada that moves beyond Canadians’ anger and frustration with Mr. Trump. This talk will be moderated by Laura Bisaillon (Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Toronto).

Speaker Biography

Raymond B. Blake, Professor of history at the University of Regina and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has written and edited more than 20 books. His 2024 book, Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity, won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. His most recent book, A History of Canada in 15 Moments: Making and Remaking a Nation since 1867, with Jeff Keshen was published earlier this year. He is with Laura Bisaillon co-president of The Canadian Studies Network-Réseau d'éudes canadiennes.