This article originally appeared in the National Post.
By Christopher Dummitt, March 17, 2025
The smart bet is that the ballot box question in the next federal election will be about national survival. Most of the debate will focus on economic choices, productivity, tariffs, trade and foreign policy. But what about culture?
To be a nation, we have to feel that we belong together, that we are more than a string of city lights in the night sky lined up along American border. It’s suddenly popular to be proudly Canadian — to vehemently publicly diss the Americans, and want to buy Canadian. But aside from being justifiably angry at Trump, what is this based on?
Our national government is meant to foster a sense of Canadian identity. What are those running for office putting on offer? What is their vision of Canada?
Mark Carney’s Liberals have the toughest challenge. For more than a decade, the Liberals ran a government that sought to reconfigure our national identity — eliminating Canadian symbols that the intelligentsia told us were shameful. Canadians had much to apologize for. We needed to decolonize, to become more diverse. Above all, the story was of the harm caused by Canadian history.
