Canada had the housing crisis. Immigration tensions. Angry voters. A growing populist movement. On paper, we should have followed America’s political path. Instead, something Canadian got in the way.
Kay, that's an important correction to the national picture.
Saying Canada resisted a MAGA-style takeover doesn't mean every part of Canada experienced politics the same way.
And that's actually part of the point.
Our regional differences can help prevent one political movement from capturing the whole country... but that doesn't make life any easier for people who feel that movement has already captured their province.
Thanks for bringing the Alberta perspective into this.
I was down visiting the Unity Bus the other day in Cochrane, AB. There were approximately a hundred or so people there arriving and leaving. Outside the parking lot there were quite a few Seppies waving our Alberta Provincial flag and yelling at us as we drove into the parking lot. I felt a lot of anger at these people at the time but upon further reflection, I tried to understand their feelings about the situation in our province. They seem to feel hard done by in the whole Canadian picture especially financially. I don't know the answer to that but giving up Canadian citizenship is not the way to go! Simplified I know but its hard to put it all into words.
They have been fed lies decade after decade. Propaganda so read by repeated provincial Conservative governments who never owned up to their failures re governance and instead blamed Ottawa. So many Albertan’s believe oil is their identity when in actuality they have zero understanding at all that Ottawa nor Alberta control any of it. OPEC controls the prices. They manipulate the market when they feel they are being threatened. US shale threatened them so they altered production which lowered the global price but Albertan’s blamed Ottawa re the drop in value. Many Albertan’s do not even know the oil extracted in Alberta as being heavy crude and it can only be refined by specific refineries. Not all refineries are created equal. It is the oil and gas industry that cancels projects not Ottawa. The industry is controlled by their shareholders. When the global price of oil drops projects get cancelled because of the rate of return. If the oil and gas corporation sees that the price drop means their profits will be too low per their requirements re profit, they cancel the project awaiting for a time when the price per barrel on the global market rises. They like $100 a barrel … $40 a barrel is a waste of their time.
Excellent analysis. Agree that our Canadian political system has a huge part to do with our resistance, but without a few other crucial components, like our roots in history, social conscience, and cultural organisation-e.g., we are not a melting pot- Canada would have been much weaker in succumbing to the southern assault. I liken it to a tapestry or woven cloth where every thread, warp and weft have to work together to make the whole strong. Political structure included.
Also, you are bang on when you write: "The biggest mistake Canadians could make now is believing we’re somehow immune." That's why we need to focus on building up the resistance in those areas I mention above, that have enabled us to become and stay "Elbows Up!" It takes a team and we have always been good at that!
Cath, I love the tapestry analogy because it adds an important layer to what I was trying to say.
Our political structure is one thread, but you're right... it isn't the whole cloth.
Our history, social programs, regional identities, multiculturalism, willingness to compromise and even that stubborn Canadian instinct to pull together...
when somebody starts pushing us around all matter too.
And that's why the "we're immune" attitude worries me.
You don't protect a tapestry by assuming it can't unravel.
You keep strengthening the threads.
Maybe that's what Elbows Up really means.
Not just resisting what's coming at us from outside Canada... but strengthening what holds us together inside it.
So I watched a video from a YouTube channel called Dangerously Informed with Evie about How we Rejected MAGA and while I don’t know if I agreed with everything she said in that video she did say something I hadn’t thought about until now which is because there are so any different flavours of Conservative in Canada it was always going to be impossible to bring it all under that singular MAGA banner
Like you said that doesn’t make it impossible for it to happen but it will take a significantly bigger marketing campaign to push it over the edge and fully into mainstream
I think it comes back to the main failure of the conservative party, which is that they don’t have enough support across the country. They are overly dominated by Alberta interests while not appealing well outside of this group. They seem to pick fights with regional conservatives (Doug Ford) so they don’t quite capture that voting block, tend to insult the french language and alienate Quebec. Also they ran to the right so far they lost more moderate conservatives. However they still should have won that last election, until Trump’s threats. Even then I think they would have been able to pull it off, if they didn’t act so out of touch with the very clear threat that the voters saw in Trump. Imagine if PP could have done a version of Doug Ford’s Captain Canada. That could have radically changed the picture in favour of the Conservatives. Better adoption of American talking point, to make them fit Canada could have changed that outcome as well.
Kalyrn, that last point is the one that really jumps out at me.
Trump changed the election.
Suddenly Canadians weren't just asking about housing, immigration or the cost of living.
They were looking south and asking who they trusted to stand up for Canada.
Doug Ford recognized that shift almost immediately and leaned hard into Captain Canada.
Poilievre never seemed able... or willing... to make the same pivot.
That's fascinating because the Conservatives still received enormous support.
The opportunity was there.
But when the question changed, the campaign didn't change with it.
Politics can turn on moments like that.
You can spend years preparing to fight one election and then discover, halfway through, that voters are suddenly deciding something completely different.
I've been warning everyone for a long time that Canadians must watch and learn. We are not immune. I've heard the MAGA voices living here as well. It can and will destroy our country if we don't take the events happening south of us as a very serious cautionary tale.
I would add to this conversation what was left out was that Canadians by a huge margin are far better educated than USians, and a large portion of our electorate understand how our system of elections and governance work.
It became painfully obvious that the Conservatives were not only not up to the job of governing Canada, they were actively working against us and helping the US.
And as time has gone by more and more Canadians are rejecting the MAPLE MAGA crowd, and they are losing relevance and significance.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t be paying a LOT of attention to what is flowing across our borders from the US, because ALL of it is poison, and meant to destroy us and divide us.
Very true, Fred. That’s one of the reasons anytime anyone has a question about how our government works or how our various systems in this country work I try and give them a complete picture of it and help them learn more.
The one thing I have discovered recently is how very very few people in Canada understand the relationship between the federal government and the provinces when it comes to who has authority over what. Too many of them seem to believe that the federal government can override any law in any of the provinces when that truly is not the case.
I agree Alexis. One part of the shield Canada has enjoyed is a very good public education system, across all provinces, Now under fire in Ontario and ( although I am not there to see it) likely Alberta. We have to really guard it.
Donna, that's an important piece of the shield too.
And I'd broaden it beyond education itself to civic education.
Teaching people how our parliamentary system works, what our institutions actually do, how elections work, and how Canada differs from the American system matters enormously.
You can't defend institutions you don't understand.
Whatever province we're talking about, weakening people's ability to think critically and understand their own democracy should concern all of us.
A strong public education system isn't just an investment in kids.
It's an investment in the adults they'll become...
and the country they'll eventually be responsible for protecting.
Of the many points touched on in your piece, Fred, and the thoughtful responses, the one that particularly stands out, in my view, is the civics education piece. I teach introductory courses in Criminology, which are 2nd year university courses. In every class, at some point early on, I ask the question, “What significant event happened in 1867, in Canadian history?” In classes of 60 students, it is rare if even 1 knows the answer to that question. If I ask, “What is the B.N.A.?”, I get blank looks.
They don’t even know what it is, let alone what it sets out, particularly with respect to the legislative jurisdictions of the federal and provincial governments, and that sets the table for what necessarily follows both respect to “blame Ottawa” and with respect to confusing the US political system with ours.
It wasn’t until I studied Comparative Federalism in 3rd year Law that I realized that the fundamental difference between Canada and the US is found in what I call the “constitutional imperatives”, found in the Preamble to each constitution. In Canada, it is that Canada is founded on the principles of “peace, order, and good government”; in the US it is that it is founded on the principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
While these imperatives do not appear in the wording of legislation, they frame the context in which much legislation is enacted. Quite simply, in the US, the individual is paramount, while in Canada, the collective is paramount.
MAGA is based on the principle of the supremacy of the individual (at the expense of the collective). An analysis of the histories of the 2 countries within this context would, the evidence strongly suggests, give credence to that proposition.
So yes, paying more attention to educating the Canadian populace on these fundamental matters would definitely aid in rejecting the MAGA world-view.
For those of us in Alberta we are currently Trumpland 2.0. We did not escape MAGA. It is hell daily.
Kay, that's an important correction to the national picture.
Saying Canada resisted a MAGA-style takeover doesn't mean every part of Canada experienced politics the same way.
And that's actually part of the point.
Our regional differences can help prevent one political movement from capturing the whole country... but that doesn't make life any easier for people who feel that movement has already captured their province.
Thanks for bringing the Alberta perspective into this.
I was down visiting the Unity Bus the other day in Cochrane, AB. There were approximately a hundred or so people there arriving and leaving. Outside the parking lot there were quite a few Seppies waving our Alberta Provincial flag and yelling at us as we drove into the parking lot. I felt a lot of anger at these people at the time but upon further reflection, I tried to understand their feelings about the situation in our province. They seem to feel hard done by in the whole Canadian picture especially financially. I don't know the answer to that but giving up Canadian citizenship is not the way to go! Simplified I know but its hard to put it all into words.
They have been fed lies decade after decade. Propaganda so read by repeated provincial Conservative governments who never owned up to their failures re governance and instead blamed Ottawa. So many Albertan’s believe oil is their identity when in actuality they have zero understanding at all that Ottawa nor Alberta control any of it. OPEC controls the prices. They manipulate the market when they feel they are being threatened. US shale threatened them so they altered production which lowered the global price but Albertan’s blamed Ottawa re the drop in value. Many Albertan’s do not even know the oil extracted in Alberta as being heavy crude and it can only be refined by specific refineries. Not all refineries are created equal. It is the oil and gas industry that cancels projects not Ottawa. The industry is controlled by their shareholders. When the global price of oil drops projects get cancelled because of the rate of return. If the oil and gas corporation sees that the price drop means their profits will be too low per their requirements re profit, they cancel the project awaiting for a time when the price per barrel on the global market rises. They like $100 a barrel … $40 a barrel is a waste of their time.
Exactly
Excellent analysis. Agree that our Canadian political system has a huge part to do with our resistance, but without a few other crucial components, like our roots in history, social conscience, and cultural organisation-e.g., we are not a melting pot- Canada would have been much weaker in succumbing to the southern assault. I liken it to a tapestry or woven cloth where every thread, warp and weft have to work together to make the whole strong. Political structure included.
Also, you are bang on when you write: "The biggest mistake Canadians could make now is believing we’re somehow immune." That's why we need to focus on building up the resistance in those areas I mention above, that have enabled us to become and stay "Elbows Up!" It takes a team and we have always been good at that!
❤️🇨🇦
Cath, I love the tapestry analogy because it adds an important layer to what I was trying to say.
Our political structure is one thread, but you're right... it isn't the whole cloth.
Our history, social programs, regional identities, multiculturalism, willingness to compromise and even that stubborn Canadian instinct to pull together...
when somebody starts pushing us around all matter too.
And that's why the "we're immune" attitude worries me.
You don't protect a tapestry by assuming it can't unravel.
You keep strengthening the threads.
Maybe that's what Elbows Up really means.
Not just resisting what's coming at us from outside Canada... but strengthening what holds us together inside it.
So I watched a video from a YouTube channel called Dangerously Informed with Evie about How we Rejected MAGA and while I don’t know if I agreed with everything she said in that video she did say something I hadn’t thought about until now which is because there are so any different flavours of Conservative in Canada it was always going to be impossible to bring it all under that singular MAGA banner
Like you said that doesn’t make it impossible for it to happen but it will take a significantly bigger marketing campaign to push it over the edge and fully into mainstream
Kyle, I think that's one of the strongest observations in the discussion.
Canada's Conservative movement has never been one thing.
It's a coalition of Western populists, fiscal conservatives, Progressive Conservatives, social conservatives, Quebec conservatives, and others.
Keeping all of those groups pulling in the same direction has always been harder than uniting a party around a single personality or ideology.
My concern is the same as yours, though.
The internet doesn't respect borders anymore.
The same algorithms, influencers, and outrage that reshaped American politics are reaching Canadians every day.
That's why I don't think we can be complacent.
Our institutions protected us once... but they only keep working if Canadians keep believing they're worth protecting.
I think it comes back to the main failure of the conservative party, which is that they don’t have enough support across the country. They are overly dominated by Alberta interests while not appealing well outside of this group. They seem to pick fights with regional conservatives (Doug Ford) so they don’t quite capture that voting block, tend to insult the french language and alienate Quebec. Also they ran to the right so far they lost more moderate conservatives. However they still should have won that last election, until Trump’s threats. Even then I think they would have been able to pull it off, if they didn’t act so out of touch with the very clear threat that the voters saw in Trump. Imagine if PP could have done a version of Doug Ford’s Captain Canada. That could have radically changed the picture in favour of the Conservatives. Better adoption of American talking point, to make them fit Canada could have changed that outcome as well.
Kalyrn, that last point is the one that really jumps out at me.
Trump changed the election.
Suddenly Canadians weren't just asking about housing, immigration or the cost of living.
They were looking south and asking who they trusted to stand up for Canada.
Doug Ford recognized that shift almost immediately and leaned hard into Captain Canada.
Poilievre never seemed able... or willing... to make the same pivot.
That's fascinating because the Conservatives still received enormous support.
The opportunity was there.
But when the question changed, the campaign didn't change with it.
Politics can turn on moments like that.
You can spend years preparing to fight one election and then discover, halfway through, that voters are suddenly deciding something completely different.
I've been warning everyone for a long time that Canadians must watch and learn. We are not immune. I've heard the MAGA voices living here as well. It can and will destroy our country if we don't take the events happening south of us as a very serious cautionary tale.
Elly, exactly.
That's the part I don't want Canadians getting comfortable about.
We didn't prove we're immune to MAGA-style politics.
We proved that, so far, our institutions and political structure have made it harder for that kind of movement to capture the whole country.
But we're watching the warning signs play out right next door in real time.
We'd be fools not to learn from them.
Canada doesn't need to become America to discover how easily democratic guardrails can weaken.
I would add to this conversation what was left out was that Canadians by a huge margin are far better educated than USians, and a large portion of our electorate understand how our system of elections and governance work.
It became painfully obvious that the Conservatives were not only not up to the job of governing Canada, they were actively working against us and helping the US.
And as time has gone by more and more Canadians are rejecting the MAPLE MAGA crowd, and they are losing relevance and significance.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t be paying a LOT of attention to what is flowing across our borders from the US, because ALL of it is poison, and meant to destroy us and divide us.
Hopefully we STAY on Guard!
Alexis, I think your last point is the one Canadians really need to hang onto... stay on guard.
Where I'd be careful is assuming education or political awareness automatically protects us.
Plenty of highly educated people can still get sucked into tribal politics, misinformation and outrage.
That's why I keep coming back to institutions and civic understanding.
Know how our system works.
Know what makes Canada different.
Challenge governments when they deserve it...
but don't confuse criticizing a government with tearing down the institutions that allow us to replace one peacefully.
And absolutely pay attention to what's crossing the border.
Ideas don't stop at customs anymore.
Canada's best defence isn't believing we're smarter than anybody else.
It's knowing what we've built, understanding why it works, and deciding it's worth protecting.
Very true, Fred. That’s one of the reasons anytime anyone has a question about how our government works or how our various systems in this country work I try and give them a complete picture of it and help them learn more.
The one thing I have discovered recently is how very very few people in Canada understand the relationship between the federal government and the provinces when it comes to who has authority over what. Too many of them seem to believe that the federal government can override any law in any of the provinces when that truly is not the case.
I agree Alexis. One part of the shield Canada has enjoyed is a very good public education system, across all provinces, Now under fire in Ontario and ( although I am not there to see it) likely Alberta. We have to really guard it.
Donna, that's an important piece of the shield too.
And I'd broaden it beyond education itself to civic education.
Teaching people how our parliamentary system works, what our institutions actually do, how elections work, and how Canada differs from the American system matters enormously.
You can't defend institutions you don't understand.
Whatever province we're talking about, weakening people's ability to think critically and understand their own democracy should concern all of us.
A strong public education system isn't just an investment in kids.
It's an investment in the adults they'll become...
and the country they'll eventually be responsible for protecting.
Yes. That thinking critically piece is now more important than ever! Thanks for this good article.
Excellent, Fred.
Thank You!!
Thank you, Carol-Ann. I really appreciate that.
These conversations in the comments are becoming every bit as interesting as the articles themselves.
Yes, so many interesting comments and knowledgeable people.
Carol-Ann, that may be my favourite part of what’s happening here.
I’m writing the articles, but increasingly **the education keeps going in the comments.**
People are bringing knowledge, experience, corrections, questions and pieces of the story I hadn’t considered.
That’s when this stops being just my Substack and starts feeling like a community.
And I’m loving the hell out of that. ❤️
Of the many points touched on in your piece, Fred, and the thoughtful responses, the one that particularly stands out, in my view, is the civics education piece. I teach introductory courses in Criminology, which are 2nd year university courses. In every class, at some point early on, I ask the question, “What significant event happened in 1867, in Canadian history?” In classes of 60 students, it is rare if even 1 knows the answer to that question. If I ask, “What is the B.N.A.?”, I get blank looks.
They don’t even know what it is, let alone what it sets out, particularly with respect to the legislative jurisdictions of the federal and provincial governments, and that sets the table for what necessarily follows both respect to “blame Ottawa” and with respect to confusing the US political system with ours.
It wasn’t until I studied Comparative Federalism in 3rd year Law that I realized that the fundamental difference between Canada and the US is found in what I call the “constitutional imperatives”, found in the Preamble to each constitution. In Canada, it is that Canada is founded on the principles of “peace, order, and good government”; in the US it is that it is founded on the principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
While these imperatives do not appear in the wording of legislation, they frame the context in which much legislation is enacted. Quite simply, in the US, the individual is paramount, while in Canada, the collective is paramount.
MAGA is based on the principle of the supremacy of the individual (at the expense of the collective). An analysis of the histories of the 2 countries within this context would, the evidence strongly suggests, give credence to that proposition.
So yes, paying more attention to educating the Canadian populace on these fundamental matters would definitely aid in rejecting the MAGA world-view.