Good morning. Today, we’re looking at why Canadian consumers could find firmer financial footing in 2026 – but it would help if the world would stop wobbling. Give us a minute to do some math.

Major projects: Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet with Coastal First Nations in British Columbia today for discussions on major natural resources projects planned for the region.

Nuclear power: Ontario Power Generation is seeking a near-doubling of payments it receives for electricity produced by its nuclear power plants, a request that could lead to surging power bills.

Central banks: The Trump administration’s threat to indict Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is sparking warnings about central bank independence.

It’s easy to get caught up in a wave of news pitting country versus country, leader versus leader.

Following years of acrimony and costly tariffs, Mark Carney’s arrival in Beijing today will mark the first visit by a Canadian Prime Minister in more than eight years. G7 countries are meeting in Washington to strike plans to secure critical minerals in a race against China. A cynic might argue U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting to become the de facto chair of the Federal Reserve as he threatens to capture the sovereign territory of a founding member of NATO.

All of these dynamics are crucial to the economic security of Canada – 13 days into the year, we already have a collection of stories that would be significant measured over a whole decade – but it’s easy to lose track of what these fights are about. Or at least, who they affect most acutely.

Global fights, household stakes

Earlier this morning, McDonald’s announced it is cutting the price of its value meals in Canada – a sign of financial stress among consumers.

The choice by Canadians to dine out less is affecting the entire restaurant industry, McDonald’s Canada chief executive officer Annemarie Swijtink told retailing reporter Susan Krashinsky Robertson.

Cost-conscious customers across the country “are having that insecurity about their financial position because of rising costs,” including food prices that continue to accelerate even as broader inflation cools.

Economists expect consumers to feel more relief this year as the Bank of Canada’s string of cuts to its benchmark lending rate spreads further across the economy.

And Bay Street’s top analysts recently shared a common view of Canada’s outlook in 2026, Mark Rendell reports : Steps by Ottawa and the provinces to improve the country’s business climate should lead to sturdier footing; some believe Trump’s threats to blow up the coming free trade renegotiations will remain rhetorical; and markets look healthy even with worry over an artificial intelligence bubble.

But the rate at which Canada grows this year will make for an imprecise measure of economic health. U.S. tariffs are slamming the heavier manufacturing regions of the country much harder than others, and efforts to shift economic policy and encourage business investment remain at an early and fragile stage.

Longer-term structural issues such as poor productivity and weak business investment have put Canada into an even more fragile position.

Never let a good crisis go to waste

At least the U.S. threats have led to the “most important repositioning of Canadian economic policy at the federal level in a generation,” Stéfane Marion, chief economist of National Bank of Canada, said at the Economic Club of Canada last week.

Buoyed by this newfound urgency, Carney and the premiers are pressing for a more business-friendly agenda of deregulation, infrastructure building and tax incentives for investment.

His current odyssey – a few days in Beijing before heading to Doha, the capital of Qatar – is aimed at thawing relations, knocking down tariffs and courting new investment to help offset a drop in U.S. market access.

It’s unlikely Carney will come away from Beijing with a major announcement or a multibillion-dollar cheque. And even as Canada shows signs that efforts to diversify trade are paying off, it will be a long time before those gains can materially reduce its dependence on an unpredictable United States.

Will negotiators from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico work out a new trade deal in July? Will Trump keep his thumb on his country’s central bank? Will the U.S. attack Iran or Greenland? Will he ever drop the talk about a “51st state?”

We can only guess. But you can see why increasingly common rosy predictions are still being overshadowed by uncertainty – and why value feels harder to find.