In C.S. Lewis’s fantasy novels The Chronicles of Narnia, a bear is mortally wounded defending the Narnians against enslavement to a false religion by Calormene soldiers. Before dying, the bear utters his last words, considered by some the most touching speech of the series. He says: “I don’t understand.”
Meaning, whatever is happening, he doesn’t get it.
The words are an appropriate meme for how the lion’s share of Canada’s media and much of the country’s institutional elites are dealing with populism, the most important force currently reshaping our political and socio-economic environment as well as disrupting advanced democracies throughout the Western world. They don’t understand. They don’t get it.
They have embraced the notion that Canada is somehow immune to what’s happening in Europe and America, although the forces of populism will be a significant presence in the forthcoming federal election and, in many respects, Canada is moving in lockstep with the United States — toward a class war and a vision war.
Populism in Canada has been masked by a paucity of research and thinking. It has been belittled, dismissed, with most expert opinion falling into two categories: patronizing and sneering. It has been viewed as the problem all on its own with little thought given to what has caused it or what can be done to encourage it to go away.
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