What Canadian Politics Reveals
Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau narrowly won reelection despite having faced numerous challenges to his campaign. He had to battle negative press generated by the discovery of his old blackface photos, as well as criticism from his Conservative opponent, Andrew Scheer. However, one of the most intriguing challenges Trudeau faced was from political opponent Maxime Bernier, who painted himself as a far-right presidential candidate not too different from our own President Trump.
Bernier has consistently proven to be unpredictable. In the past, he had leaned towards some liberal tendencies—for example, he marched in a gay pride parade in 2016. However, last year, Bernier began to reinvent himself. Originally a member of the CPC, the Conservative Party of Canada, he left in 2018 to create his own party and his own brand. He took a more conservative stance, promising to stop giving foreign aid to other countries and to ensure that immigration into Canada doesn’t erase the Canadian identity. This rhetoric should sound familiar—Bernier is the latest in a string of nationalist, populist politicians who have emerged in the last couple years. He has company in U.S. President Donald Trump, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and members of “Alternative for Germany,” a German far-right political party that has lately gained some ground.
Nationalism is a questionable political ideology. Nationalists gain power by amplifying the anger and fear of the common people. Their greatest strength is their generally unified platform, one that appeals to a group of core voters that can be found everywhere. Because nationalism is based on the idea that your own country is more important than all others, nationalist candidates tend to be anti-immigrant and are focused mostly on preserving their own “identity,” and every country has citizens who feel this way. Bernier panders to this nationalistic base. One of his promises that gained traction was his declaration not to allow immigration to destroy the Canadian identity. This is only one of many statements that bring grave concerns.
In 2018, Bernier promised to take Canada out of the Paris climate accords, and while he was denied the ability to do that, Justin Trudeau doesn’t exactly have the right to gloat about climate action either. Trudeau’s actions to combat climate change have been flaky at best. Climate activist Greta Thunberg met with Trudeau this September to discuss, among other things, the bill for an extension of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, a pipeline similar to the Keystone Pipeline with the potential to create massive oil spills which could greatly affect wildlife and the indigenous peoples living in Canada. Like many people, Thunberg was frustrated, because the Trans Mountain bill was passed a day after the Canadian parliament passed a motion declaring a national climate emergency. Of course, Trudeau agreed with Thunberg, saying that they “need to do more.”
It’s problems like this that give rise to nationalism. Trudeau may have been reelected as Prime Minister, but his government is a minority government. The reason that Canadian conservatives were able to gain a majority over liberals was because, according to Trudeau, Canadians care about issues such as climate change and the environment, and they showed that they care.
Trudeau now has to take action to help prevent climate change or risk losing power completely. This is not a world for politics anymore. Politicians were never able to appease everyone, but it is now plain that appeasement will just lead us down a dead end. Politicians now have to make the right decisions, because otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous. And when politicians don’t make the right decisions, it’s up to the people to put them back on the right track.
Bernier, fortunately, lost the election in Canada, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t forget about him. The world will be seeing more nationalists attempting to get elected in first-world countries, which has been increasingly difficult to combat. In fact, pretty much the only way to successfully combat nationalism is to unilaterally fight against it. If we care about issues like climate change and fighting nationalism, we should stand together, and take action together. Unity is a source of strength when faced with adversity. Otherwise, we should expect to see a lot more copies of Bernier, all around the world.