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| Canada has long been seen as the cool cousin next door. Here’s the truth | Canada has long been seen as the cool cousin next door. Here’s the truth |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| The country has exported a myth of progressivism. It’s time to confront who we really are | The country has exported a myth of progressivism. It’s time to confront who we really are |
| Canada has been canonized – safely, predictably. | Canada has been canonized – safely, predictably. |
| It’s the great, grave story we’ve exported – retold in economic rankings, stitched into tourism ads, held up in classrooms and cable news panels. We’re the cooler, mellower cousin nextdoor. The country that has it figured out. Where healthcare is universal, democracy is calm and diversity is politely managed. | |
| This image has been shared like a TikTok meme for decades – forwarded, favourited, lightly interrogated. Over time, we’ve become more vibe than nation; contradictions, history and horrors flattened into brand energy. Place that flag in your Twitter bio, mention how “we’ll never become like America,” and you’ve bought into the sauce. You’re not the problem, you’re proof the problem lives somewhere else. | This image has been shared like a TikTok meme for decades – forwarded, favourited, lightly interrogated. Over time, we’ve become more vibe than nation; contradictions, history and horrors flattened into brand energy. Place that flag in your Twitter bio, mention how “we’ll never become like America,” and you’ve bought into the sauce. You’re not the problem, you’re proof the problem lives somewhere else. |
| This kind of deception has always been fundamental to our story. But we need only a glimpse at our neighbour’s constitutional preamble – “We the people of the United States” – to get a hint of the delusion. Canada’s constitutional language, by contrast, never used the populist “we”. From the start, there was no sweeping assertion of collective identity. Instead, the Constitution Act, 1867, opened with: | This kind of deception has always been fundamental to our story. But we need only a glimpse at our neighbour’s constitutional preamble – “We the people of the United States” – to get a hint of the delusion. Canada’s constitutional language, by contrast, never used the populist “we”. From the start, there was no sweeping assertion of collective identity. Instead, the Constitution Act, 1867, opened with: |
| Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland … | Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland … |
| Granted, Canada’s constitutional framework evolved. But from the beginning, the difference in language spoke to the shaping of our identity – through agreements, compromises, legal frameworks, not a people-centered vision. This historical nuance, while subtle, now echoes in modern politics. | Granted, Canada’s constitutional framework evolved. But from the beginning, the difference in language spoke to the shaping of our identity – through agreements, compromises, legal frameworks, not a people-centered vision. This historical nuance, while subtle, now echoes in modern politics. |
| All that to say: times are spooky for the average Canadian forced to define and defend Canada’s sovereignty. Spooky in ways that can cause one to reflexively feed into a myth, rather than confront the truth of who we are. The gap between our negotiated past and our branded present has never been more plain. Our current leaders are no exception. | All that to say: times are spooky for the average Canadian forced to define and defend Canada’s sovereignty. Spooky in ways that can cause one to reflexively feed into a myth, rather than confront the truth of who we are. The gap between our negotiated past and our branded present has never been more plain. Our current leaders are no exception. |
| To any Canadian progressive, it’s stating the obvious to say that Justin Trudeau, the figure most associated with Canada’s progressive identity, was more committed to feeding the myth than confronting it. With his well-timed, photogenic smile – post-blackface, naturally – Trudeau was the perfect mascot. Our self-image personified: tolerant, polished, unthreatening. But branding aside, his government sidestepped moral clarity at home – from pipeline expansions and broken promises to Indigenous communities, to a foreign policy on Gaza that rarely strayed from Washington’s script. In moments that demanded progressive definition, he was formless. | To any Canadian progressive, it’s stating the obvious to say that Justin Trudeau, the figure most associated with Canada’s progressive identity, was more committed to feeding the myth than confronting it. With his well-timed, photogenic smile – post-blackface, naturally – Trudeau was the perfect mascot. Our self-image personified: tolerant, polished, unthreatening. But branding aside, his government sidestepped moral clarity at home – from pipeline expansions and broken promises to Indigenous communities, to a foreign policy on Gaza that rarely strayed from Washington’s script. In moments that demanded progressive definition, he was formless. |
| It would have been naive to think many Canadians would take Donald Trump seriously when he half-jokingly suggested in November 2024 that Canada become the 51st state. After all, those words came from someone familiar to us – a man and a Maga movement forged in the belief that something sacred was always being stolen. The enemy, the fuel for his fervor, shifted with the news cycle: migrants, trans youth, teachers, climate scientists, Muslims, Black Americans, DEI initiatives, and the very idea of truth. | It would have been naive to think many Canadians would take Donald Trump seriously when he half-jokingly suggested in November 2024 that Canada become the 51st state. After all, those words came from someone familiar to us – a man and a Maga movement forged in the belief that something sacred was always being stolen. The enemy, the fuel for his fervor, shifted with the news cycle: migrants, trans youth, teachers, climate scientists, Muslims, Black Americans, DEI initiatives, and the very idea of truth. |
| But the speaker of those words wore the same jacket as Pierre Poilievre, who, just before Trump’s threat, was the undeniable favourite among Canadians to become the next prime minister. | But the speaker of those words wore the same jacket as Pierre Poilievre, who, just before Trump’s threat, was the undeniable favourite among Canadians to become the next prime minister. |
| His rhetoric tapped into the same fears and scapegoating, presenting itself as the antidote to a broken system. Poilievre ticked off his own list of Trump-style grievances: DEI initiatives? “Garbage.” Trans women in women’s spaces? “No place at all.” Immigration policies? “Destroying” a system that requires caps over compassion to curb economic and social pressure. It’s as if he were part of the same tired flock – one that targets the marginalized while promising to fix what he claims is broken. The popular sentiments of a supposedly morally superior land. | |
| And this isn’t new. In 2008, as the country prepared to confront the brutal legacy of residential schools, Poilievre dismissed the moment sanctimoniously, arguing that Indigenous people needed to learn “the values of hard work” more than they needed compensation for past abuses. That’s who was in line to lead the country, as anointed by our polls. | And this isn’t new. In 2008, as the country prepared to confront the brutal legacy of residential schools, Poilievre dismissed the moment sanctimoniously, arguing that Indigenous people needed to learn “the values of hard work” more than they needed compensation for past abuses. That’s who was in line to lead the country, as anointed by our polls. |
| In the end, his opponent Mark Carney was victorious. But it should be clear that a shift toward the Liberal leader isn’t clarity about who we are, as much as it is a hedge against a man who seeks to claim us from afar. | In the end, his opponent Mark Carney was victorious. But it should be clear that a shift toward the Liberal leader isn’t clarity about who we are, as much as it is a hedge against a man who seeks to claim us from afar. |
| Carney is no antidote – just a bandage. Cutting ministries for gender equality and disability rights isn’t healing; it’s harm. His economic nationalism is safer than the far-right’s bluster, but it’s closer to US centrism than a remedy. | Carney is no antidote – just a bandage. Cutting ministries for gender equality and disability rights isn’t healing; it’s harm. His economic nationalism is safer than the far-right’s bluster, but it’s closer to US centrism than a remedy. |
| As one union representing more than 80,000 educators put it, the move signals “an unwise change of direction” for a country where vulnerable groups are already living in fear. And while Carney served as an executive at Brookfield Asset Management, the company faced accusations of violating Indigenous rights. | As one union representing more than 80,000 educators put it, the move signals “an unwise change of direction” for a country where vulnerable groups are already living in fear. And while Carney served as an executive at Brookfield Asset Management, the company faced accusations of violating Indigenous rights. |
| What Canadians and others need to confront is that the Trump machine wasn’t purely fueled by cultural resentment. It was powered, in no small part, by the United States’ historic desire to promote and believe the best of itself – even when the evidence said otherwise. | |
| For me, as a Black Canadian, home has rarely been the gentle myth so many sing about. Always polite and tolerant it wasn’t. I’ve seen just as much of the opposite: unmarked graves, flickers of grief, and then silence. I’ve seen headlines and acknowledgments of systematic racism turn to indifference: police brutality, missing Indigenous women, gone like breath during our winters. And yes, I’ve seen the Proud Boys, too. Their founder, Gavin McInnes? Canadian. | For me, as a Black Canadian, home has rarely been the gentle myth so many sing about. Always polite and tolerant it wasn’t. I’ve seen just as much of the opposite: unmarked graves, flickers of grief, and then silence. I’ve seen headlines and acknowledgments of systematic racism turn to indifference: police brutality, missing Indigenous women, gone like breath during our winters. And yes, I’ve seen the Proud Boys, too. Their founder, Gavin McInnes? Canadian. |
| Canada holds beauty, but it harbours moral rot just as much as the neighbour it claims to rise above. Myth-making can’t save us. If we want to hold onto our sovereignty in this moment, maybe it’s time we stop lying like them – to others, and most of all, to ourselves. | Canada holds beauty, but it harbours moral rot just as much as the neighbour it claims to rise above. Myth-making can’t save us. If we want to hold onto our sovereignty in this moment, maybe it’s time we stop lying like them – to others, and most of all, to ourselves. |
| Noel Ransome is a Toronto-based freelance writer | Noel Ransome is a Toronto-based freelance writer |
| Noel Ransome is a Toronto-based freelance writer | Noel Ransome is a Toronto-based freelance writer |
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