[URBAN NOTE] "Trump-proofing Canadian communities"

[rfmcdonald]

Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc makes the argument that we Canadians need to consciously plan ways to resist the spread of Trump's ideologies into our country.

Amidst the miasma of grief and bewilderment that engulfed the past week, I have found myself pondering the question: are we vulnerable, and if so, how?

Certainly, Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch thinks there’s political hay to be harvested with knuckle-headed ideas like a values test for new immigrants. More broadly, while the outcome of the presidential election is deeply rooted in the fraught history of U.S. race relations, there’s little doubt that the sort of venom Donald Trump has uncorked is highly contagious, and will serve to further legitimate nativist parties in countries like the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Hungary.

In short, it’s clear that Canadians who reject this kind of politics must not be smug, especially not now.

But is it possible to think through what would be required for Canada, as a society, to inoculate itself from these forces? And what does that project look like?

First, it’s important to say that while Canadians tend to be more collectivist, the country is not now, and has never been, free of substantial and systemic racism. It still exists, and has succeeded in finding political and legal expression (Chinese head tax, “none is too many,” residential schools, racial profiling, etc.)

Yes, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won last year’s election on a platform/stance that rejected the Harper government’s subtle and not-so-subtle appeals to anti-immigrant/anti-outsider sentiment. Our senior courts handed down rulings that pushed back against bigoted laws. But backsliding and revanchist politics is a real thing in our world, and there’s no reason to assume this country is immune.