Why I’m Scared About What’s Happening In Canada Right Now
An ugly, newfound boldness threatens to dominate the next federal election. This shift to the right is keeping me up at night.
I’m scared about what’s happening in Canada.
When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, many of us Canadians wagged our fingers smugly at our southern neighbour. “What were they thinking?” we said to one another in line at Tim Hortons. We spent the next year or so glued to CNN, more captivated by American politics than what’s happening here.
We might have wanted to pay more attention.
The tide in the Great White North appears to be shifting right — but not in the way we’re used to. This isn’t a typical liberal-conservative tug-o-war, the ebb and flow we’ve seen throughout election cycles. This new movement is one that has already swept through Hungary, Poland, the U.S., it’s fuelled Brexit in the U.K. and has seen the rise of the far-right party Alternative for Germany, who have been compared to the Nazi regime. And it’s tilted so far to the right that it threatens to upend our democracy and the very liberties we’ve fought for.
While conservatives have historically called for less government regulation, lower taxes and a stronger military, today’s Canadian right-wing politics has rebranded itself to include more visible intolerance. Bigotry isn’t just bubbling under the surface these days, it’s out in the open and proudly displayed for when the guests come over.
This ugly, newfound boldness threatens to dominate the next federal election, impacting not only the world’s view of us a fair, diverse and welcoming country, but also the lives of all marginalized Canadians. That keeps me up at night.
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