Canada's soft-power flex

OTTAWA — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s rousing Davos speech, where he called on middle powers to not become losers to the world’s “hegemons,” delivered a message that positioned Canada as an influential convening power. Now, with billions watching — including during this afternoon's match between Germany and Côte d'Ivoire in Toronto — the World Cup is giving Canada an unprecedented opportunity to thirst-trap a global audience to take America’s neighbor a little more seriously. “The international brand of Canada is important for our economy, for our place in the world, diplomatically, but also commercially,” Canada’s Secretary of State for Sport and Olympic gold medalist Adam van Koeverden told POLITICO. “We just want to emphasize that Canada is open for business,” he said. “We’re taking advantage of the reality that all eyes will be on Canada for the next couple of weeks throughout the FIFA tournament … and we want to continue to reinforce relationships, make new friends [and] meet new corporate partners.” Canada needs foreign investors to get the Carney government’s dreams of building oil pipelines, new rail and port expansions to unlock new wealth for a country that continues to be the target of tariffs and casual annexation threats from its closest ally. And a bellicose U.S. President Donald Trump has only helped Carney in his trips around the world to lure more foreign investment, selling Canada as a reliable destination to an unreliable United States. A goal for senior Canadian government officials is to use the World Cup to bait deep-pocketed viewers to attend the inaugural Canada Investment Summit that Carney is organizing in September. The idea is to attract “the world’s largest investors” to raise C$1 trillion over the next five years to charge the economy — Carney’s message of adapting to the global “rupture” by wresting economic control of the future put into practice. That could mean more cash to expand sport infrastructure, such as stadiums, to