Canada: Stop with this Smug Bullshit. We are Not Better than America.

****Note* People have started reading this essay again in June 2018 after the election of Doug Ford as Premier of Ontario. I assume because searches for the term “Canada’s Trump” are up and Doug Ford is a “unwavering” Trump Supporter. This essay was written the day after Donald Trump was elected and therefore while it was predicting something *like* a Ford Majority in Ontario many of the events leading up to that, including the choice of federal PC party leader etc had not yet happened. I’ve chosen to leave the essay as is rather than update it as I feel it is an appropriate relic to remind Canadians of this time when many thought we were immune to the type of politics our friends down south were experiencing. What follows is the original November 9th 2016 text. *Note****

When I’m this emotional I write. I can’t stop myself because I know it’s the only way I can feel better. But I also feel like my American friends don’t need to hear what I have to say today, they don’t need any more words. There is nothing I can say to help them. They don’t need to think about me today. So to my American friends and friends of other nationalities living in America, I will just say this: you are such incredibly impressive souls and you don’t deserve this. I’m sorry, and I love you and whatever you need I am here for you. Just say the word.

Instead today I’m going to channel my writing into talking to my fellow Canadians. And specifically my fellow white Canadians. Because white people caused this mess and because white people are perpetuating it. And not just the 63% of American white men and 52% of American white women that voted for Trump (correct me if those numbers are low or need to be updated). Every white person. Not just “uneducated white people” or “poor white people”. Fucking all white people. The KKK is wandering the streets of America today in full garb. They are celebrating. One member today said: “the success of the Trump campaign just proves that our views resonated with millions. They may not be ready for the Klu Klux Klan yet, but as anti-white hatred escalates, they will.” This statement is horrifying but it is also true. I can’t argue with it. It’s true. White people reading this you may not be donning a hood but you are supporting those who do with your ignorance or your silence.

I’m talking to white Canadians because I’m a white Canadian and I know a hell of a lot of white Canadians and this is how I feel I can make a difference today while still sitting at home crying with out of control anxiety. I’m talking to white Canadians because we need to smarten up and also because y’all are all making me so fucking mad. So here it goes:

Cut. Out. Your. Smug. Canadian. Bullshit. STOP.

Stop telling yourself that there is some sort of intrinsic difference between Canadians and Americans and stop acting like we are better than this or them and like it couldn’t happen to us. Stop. Stop acting like it isn’t already happening to us. Stop. Stop acting like everything is okay. Stop saying the American election is “great for comedy”. Stop saying it’s a reality TV show you love to watch. Fucking stop. Don’t get mad at America or Americans get mad at the state of the world. Get mad at yourself. Get mad and stop being so fucking smug.

I can’t believe how ashamed this American election has made me to be Canadian. I didn’t know Canadians were capable of such condescending divisive hateful crap. The jokes about building a wall between us and them are no longer funny. Joking that you don’t want them to immigrate here isn’t funny. These hats are NOT funny. Thinking that you are safe from white supremacists the alt-right and neoconservatism because you live in Canada and JT has his “sunny ways” is hilarious tho. It’s a fucking joke.

At the bottom of this rant is a link. That link is to an email sent out by Kellie Leitch the Woman who could likely be our next Conservative party leader and therefore Prime Minister. She excitedly writes:

“Tonight our American cousins thew out the elites and elected Donald Trump as their next President. It’s an exciting message and one that we need delivered in Canada as well. It’s the message I’m bringing with my campaign to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. It’s why I’m the only candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada who is standing up for Canadian values.”

This woman was both Minister of Labour and Minister for the Status of Women in our government. In Canada. And if she was American she would have voted for Trump. She wants to be Canada’s Trump.

Don’t you fucking tell me we are better than them. And don’t you dare them me “oh well she doesn’t have a chance” etc. because people have been saying that since the first rumblings of Trump running and he wasn’t even a politician. People have been telling me for over a year now that I didn’t have to worry about Trump becoming President of the United States and they were wrong, I did have to worry. People just LOVE to tell you that you are being alarmist and emotional people love to tell you you are over reacting. So don’t fucking tell me I don’t have to worry about this woman become Prime Minister of my own country.

Don’t try to tell me that we are different. Don’t include me in your vision of smug white Canada laughing at “stupid Americans”. White people run our country just as much as they run America — we just like to pretend they don’t. With our feel good smug mosaic not melting pot bullshit. Instead of making a list of all the national proof of this I’m going to do what I always do and make it personal. Make it small. Make it subjective. I know Canada is not better than the US and not better than electing Trump because of how and where I grew up. In conservative Canada.

I grew up in a part of Canada where teens hung confederate flags on their walls without irony, where people referred to the few people of coulor in our cluster of towns with almost exclusively racial slurs, where as a child who hit puberty early I was constantly sexually objectified by the grown men around me, where I was raised thinking feminism was a dirty word, where there seems to be a deep nostalgia for the ideas and culture of the American South, where country music plays on loop in the grocery store, where my school mascot was the “Redmen” and I was in 12th grade before someone finally explained why that was problematic to me, where we were taught nothing of contemporary native lives or history, where girls I know were raped and their rapists walked free because they were “outstanding community members”, a place where literally not a soul was out as gay or trans, where you never ever heard the word trans and the word gay meant nothing more than “bad”, a place where someone like me could grow up thinking that they wouldn’t go to university less get a PhD, a place where drinking and driving is the accepted norm and the person who is the “least drunk” will drive you home, a place where everyone regularly drinks themselves to death, a place where the standard for “alcoholism” is honestly non-existent, a place where you could drive past farms protected by swastika-clad gates, a place where a local well-knew neo-nazi carved a swastika into his grass so large that you could see it on Google Earth causing an international stir. A place where that same man burned crosses in his front yard. A place where drugs were so readily available I did them for the first and last time when I was only 13. A place where weird kids are born and try to hide and blend in until they can escape. And that is just my tiny little corner of Canada. One place. And this is only 18 years worth of stories. These horrors exist in every corner in every closet in Canada. My county, my small town, my experience, is not the exception to the rule of a progressive Canada.

*Update** It is no surprise given the above list that my local MP back home who I have known my whole life just came out as a long time Trump supporter.

**Update to the Update** He then claimed he was simply stating that he knew Trump would win, but also refused to say that he *didn’t* support Trump instead saying it was “irrelevant.”

Don’t tell me that we are different and don’t be so fucking smug. The worst thing we can do right now is revel in our confidence that we are different. That slow steady change will be a solution. That we are a land glorious and free of backlashes. Don’t tell me that there aren’t countless Canadians seething against JT waiting for the opportunity to strike back with a vote. A vote for Canada’s Trump.

So I don’t want to just be the angry girl without solutions. As much as I think that is a valid perspective I want you to walk away from this with a way to fix your behavior in a helpful way that I hope helps battle complacency in this country.

Here are a few things that you can effortlessly incorporate into your life if you want to help slow this rampaging hate. I’m not asking you to join any organizations or even write your MP I’m asking you to be critical of yourself and change the way you speak to other Canadians.

1. Stop defending your whiteness. Admit you are part of the problem. Come to terms with your immense privilege. You are not under attack as a white person or as a man or as a Christian. Christmas is not under attack and white lives are not under attack “blue lives” are not under attack. Stop defending yourself and ask yourself why you feel the need to defend yourself. Stop circulating narratives that white people are oppressed or being attacked. You are wrong. There is no such thing as the oppression of white lives or white rights.
2. Stop ignoring people of colour and listen to everything they have to say about this election and about the state of this world. It is relevant to you. These problems are your problems.
3. Stop saying that Trump’s victory was simply “because Hillary was a woman” and leaving it at that without thinking about the incredible impact of white supremacy that allowed Trump to rise to the position of president. This is about so much more than gender and about so much more than Hilary.
4. Stop yourself from saying things like “political correctness has gone amok” or “I can’t say anything anymore”. Stop being upset about the fact that you can’t say things that hurt other people. STOP SAYING THINGS THAT HURT OTHER PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. You are not oppressed by activists. You can and do say whatever the fuck you want. Donald Trump did not get elected in a world where there is TOO MUCH political correctness. Think about that.
5. Stop defending men in power. Stop saying you feel bad that not every Canadian likes JT or that people are so hard on Jian Ghomeshi, or that people talk about white men like they are the devil. It’s so great to be a rich man in our country they DO NOT need your thoughts or sympathy. Channel your thoughts your sympathy your defence to the POC, the trans folks, the genderqueer people and women who men in power stomp on on their way to the top. Ask yourself why you feel bad for these men in power.
6. Stop making fun of millennials and take us seriously. Stop calling us special snowflakes. Stop calling us entitled. Stop mocking us for being so concerned with social justice. Stop making fun of our identities. Our poverty. I can’t believe we are so frequently mocked for being TOO politically involved and concerned.
7. Stop circulating the narrative of Canada as a progressive utopia without flaws. We are not perfect, not even close. We are not better than them. This is not funny. Stop.

Your smugness is suffocating Canada. You honestly remind me of Trump.

Kellie Leitch latches on to Trump victory - Macleans.ca

• *UPDATE** I’ve seen literally so many instances of Pro-Trump shit in Canada now that i’m just going to start a list. This is literally nothing compared to the millions of horrible acts being committed in Trump’s name in the U.S. but still worth acknowledging for our local context. **I stopped updating this list after a few days because there was just so much it was overwhelming**
• Kellie Leitch’s attempt to create Trump support, and by proxy support for her leadership bid within the Conservative party is the obvious first large scale incident.
• The day after Trump was elected I saw people walking around Toronto in Trump garb and others talking loudly and aggressively to strangers about their excitement over the Trump win.
• I also heard various Canadian Trump supporters interviewed on CBC Radio but don’t have a link for that.
• 15 year old greeting his friends at the Saskatchewan airport by chanting “Trump Trump Trump”.
• This sign up in the window of an establishment on Queen West not far from my house.
• As I mentioned above, the local MP where I grew up endorsed Trump on the local radio and said he had been a Trump supporter from “the beginning”.
• A group of people hung this pro trump banner in Mississauga.
• A judge walked into a Hamilton courtroom wearing a make america great again hat.
• Another very scary one in Hamilton. Which I think is from their local paper.
• CBC still interviewing more Canadian Trump Supporters
• And again
• This is an older vice article about the man in Toronto who founded the organization “Canadian’s for Trump”
• I’ve already seen multiple uses of the phrase “Make Ontario Great Again”
• And there is this older story of students at UBC selling “Make Canada Great Again” hats.
• In this poll 76% of Canadian’s interviewed said they would be interested in voting for someone with similar policies to Donald Trump.
• But then this poll suggests that 62% of Canadians are upset by the outcome of the election. But you know what? For some reason I just don’t trump polls of any type right now.