Our neighbours across the colonial border are grappling with what is shaping up to be a United States dictatorship, with outsized influence from a syndicate of the world’s richest men. With a federal election around the corner and geopolitical tensions rising across the world, this is a moment for Canada to dive into audacious changes that can unite us all through visionary climate justice rather than rugged individualism and nationalism.
We must resist the urge to turn inwards and protect ourselves due to a fear of the other, and instead should seek to humanize and depolarize. Through emergency climate action, funding healthcare and schools, establishing national green jobs programs, and providing homes and care for the unhoused, we can strengthen our identity, our resilience, and our duty to defend one another against fascism approaching our border and growing from within.
President Trump has threatened multiple times to annex Canada, with his staff reiterating the seriousness of this threat to Canada’s premiers in an unprecedented White House meeting. This news has been worrying and disorienting for Canadians. In response, many have taken swift action by boycotting American products, cancelling vacations in the United States, and organizing solidarity rallies and protests. For years, Canada has been a deeply polarized nation, but now progressive and conservative Canadians are inching toward unity against a common enemy that is the Trump-Musk regime.
MP Charlie Angus wrote that this is an unprecedented moment in our history, one that we have not seen since the 1930s—and given that most of us weren’t alive during the nazi era and the Second World War, this is vastly unknown territory. No one seems to know exactly what to do, but as Angus puts it, now is the time for politicians to work together. But do all politicians want to uphold human dignity and rights for everyone?
Just days ago, Trump stated online that those who defend one’s country can break no law, appearing to justify his unlawful attacks on human rights and sovereign nations. As we approach the federal election, political parties are launching their campaigns and crafting key messages about how we as Canadians can address these threats and the urgent need to revive our democracy.
Revival of the Canada First movement
On February 15, Pierre Poilievre announced his “Canada First” platform, an eerily familiar echo of a Canadian nationalist movement from the late 1800s that formed in opposition to Métis resistance in the Red River led by Louis Riel. Standing in a room adorned with giant Canadian flags and dripping with nationalist pride, Poilievre chose not to use this moment and platform to bring all Canadians together regardless of political affiliation, nor did he vow to defend people, namely transgender people and immigrants, whose rights are under attack by the United States (and even here, in Canada). Instead, Poilievre drove the wedge further between what he dichotomizes as “patriots” and the “radical woke left”. Poilievre declared that he will end the war on Canada’s history by celebrating its past, protecting statues, and criminalizing those who protest against harmful extractive industries—all through an apparent desire to build a sense of national pride. Canada has seen these nationalist impulses before and inevitably, it leads to persecution and dehumanization.
In the 1800s, Canada built the Canadian Pacific Railway to unite the newly formed nation, exploiting cheap Chinese labour by paying them less than half of white labourers and subjecting them to the harshest of conditions. By the early 1900s, Chinese immigrants were labelled as dangers to the state and Canada instituted the racist Chinese head tax, requiring Chinese immigrants to pay enormous amounts to enter the country. In his speech, Poilievre talked about the Pacific Railway, conveniently omitting its racist legacy. Instead, he used the opportunity to play with a sense of nationalist pride while ridiculing today’s climate protestors, claiming that such a monumental project could never be completed today.
During the Second World War, tens of thousands of Japanese Canadians, most of whom were born in Canada, were forced into internment camps and had their property confiscated, all while being labeled “enemy aliens”. The government’s actions were supported by a public whose understanding of true Canadian identity explicitly excluded people who were different from European settlers. Throughout our history, nationalism that was branded as defensive patriotism evolved into policies that harmed vulnerable communities while failing to address the actual threats Canada faced.
Though he accuses the Liberals of erasing Canada’s history, Poilievre himself is attempting to rewrite and hide Canada’s legacy of mistreating people based on nationalist ideals. Capitulating to Poilievre’s rhetoric because of economic anxiety or fear of the unknown will only sacrifice marginalized people and deny climate justice.
Instead of desiring a return to Canada’s mythic past, our politicians should be working to lead us into a new era, one in which we take care of each other, stand up for the basic human rights of our family and friends who are being persecuted on the basis of their identity, and create audacious climate justice programs that will lead us courageously through the polycrisis.
Climate action, not nationalism
Canadians face a fundamental choice as we move toward a federal election. We also have a duty to hold leaders accountable for divisive and harmful tactics. The solutions currently being offered to us include upping militarization, surveillance, policing, and austerity measures. But a truly resilient Canada requires the opposite approach. We should be addressing the climate emergency through collective action that transcends political divisions, creating green jobs that do not depend on exploiting people or resources. Unlike nationalist rhetoric that divides us into “patriotic Canadians” versus “the woke left”, climate action offers benefits for all communities.
At the Canada First rally, Poilievre also declared that he will leverage liquified natural gas, pipelines, and nuclear power—with no mention of renewable energy. The science is clear that human-caused climate change is occurring, and yet Poilievre never even mentioned the climate crisis in his speech, let alone the disproportionate impacts on Indigenous communities and low-income Canadians.
Poilievre asked the audience to imagine how dangerous climate activists and social justice advocates would be after tariffs, using terms like “eco-fanatics” to instill more hysteria. It is not wrong to fight for climate justice. It is not wrong to want job opportunities that exist outside of volatile industries like fossil fuels. The climate crisis will continue to accelerate, and if more nations around the world go to war, we will see an influx of climate refugees. In a world of climate breakdown, there will be no “Canada First”. Climate change knows no borders.
Radical imagination for Canada’s future
This election, we must demand more from the ruling political parties. Young people have been fighting for a national Youth Climate Corps that would employ tens of thousands of Canadians building renewable infrastructure, restoring habitats, and responding to climate disasters while earning living wages with union representation. A national housing program could construct hundreds of thousands of affordable and environmentally sustainable homes while creating green construction jobs in every province. Properly funding our school system would allow for children to receive the support they need in classrooms, including climate education and ecological literacy, strengthening mental health at a time when children are facing unprecedented mental health crises. These solutions are more than programs that Poilievre and other politicians can simply sacrifice in order to fund militarization and police surveillance—these are investments in social and climate resilience that would make Canada stronger in the face of volatile governments and failing capitalist economies.
As Canadians, we face a critical choice in this election cycle. We can succumb to nationalist rhetoric that sacrifices our shared humanity in the name of “protection”, or we can build something better. This means actively supporting candidates who reject xenophobia and embrace climate justice regardless of party affiliation. It means joining community organizations working on climate, human rights, and democracy. And it means having difficult conversations with neighbours and family members about what kind of Canada we want to defend. It also means standing unequivocally with transgender people, immigrants, disabled people, Indigenous people, and all others whom fascism seeks to erase.
Life is filled with contradictions but abandoning human rights and climate justice is a line we must not cross. The answer to fascism isn’t more nationalism—it’s deeper democracy, stronger communities, empowered labour movements, and unwavering commitment to justice for all. We should feel proud to resist fascism and fight for our freedom, rather than fighting to uphold a culture and a nation that, far too often, has failed to care for its people and the planet. Climate justice demands we reimagine our relationship to each other and to the land by building a future where no community is sacrificed for profit or nationalist pride.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
