Is Canada morally leaderless?

For anyone born in the 70s or 80s, it is abundantly clear we’re living in the most perilous period of our lifetimes. The most powerful country in the world has fallen from a functional democracy to an unabashedly fascist regime.

Oh, some political scientists will still nuance the current American context with terms like ‘flawed democracy’ or ‘competitive authoritarianism’ - after all, the US still has elections! (Well, we’ll see). I wrote in this space 10 months ago about how the US is no longer a true democracy, with a brief outline of the many reasons why. But the time for careful parsing is over. The President of the United States has a personal army invading cities and murdering citizens. The rule of law lies dead next to them. Trump’s is a fascist regime.

In Canada, the current government won an election in no small part due to a promise that the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, seemed to recognize the stakes. We were inundated with ads blazoned with the Elbows Up mantra, Carney gave speeches recognizing the existential nature of Trump’s 51st state rhetoric and explaining that the old partnership was over.

Ever since the election, however, there have been deepening signs that it’s now Elbows Down, Thumb in Mouth. Our government treads lightly on, even downplays, the most outrageous attacks on the international rules-based order. The government’s messaging on the Canada-US relationship oscillates from skepticism to naive optimism and even talk of deepening or strengthening the relationship.

Critics are assured by the government’s most ardent defenders that all of this is wise. After all, why antagonize the madman in the White House? We’re vulnerable, and Carney is wise to try to placate the monster while - we assure you - he is quietly going about remaking our economy and shifting us away from American dependency. They talk as if it’s rational to pursue a new trade deal with a man who can’t possibly be trusted to uphold it for a day, let alone years. Most concerning, they reject the idea that speaking in defense of basic democratic norms is worth the time.

It’s a strategy essentially designed to ensure democracy remains undefended. First, it’s important to realize that Trump is not the only audience. He’s not even the most important audience. Not remotely. When our leaders fail to speak in defense of democratic norms or the rule of law, it is signal to the rest of America, and indeed to all Canadians, that these are normal times, that everything is fine. But things are not okay. We are frogs boiling in a pot, and it should frighten you, dear reader, that our political class is going about their business as if it’s still 2015.

Which is why we should be watching for the most basic of litmus tests. If the Government of Canada can’t be bothered to do the easy things, to preserve the most basic sense of principle and dignity in the face of glaring red line offenses, then we can’t possibly trust it with the more difficult and complex issues. (And yes, I pause here to recognize that Pierre Poilievre, a man who took time last week to praise Trump’s illegal actions against Venezuela, is even worse).

And this is why what has happened to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, and the government’s nakedly blasé attitude towards a forum whose system - not only its users, but its ‘AI’ - is propagating child sex abuse material and whose owner is an unabashed white supremacist should prompt some very careful thought. Because if our elected representatives, government ministries and agencies, and other major institutions and organizations not only refuse to act against X but can’t even be bothered to stop using the site it represents a microcosm of our bigger problem: this country is morally leaderless.

A mere two-and-a-half months ago a bunch of politicians and commentators lost their collective shit when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down mandatory minimum sentences relating to child pornography offences (while misrepresenting the impact of the Court’s ruling, by the way). Have any of those righteous op-ed writers or politicians deleted their X accounts or even criticized the platform in the face of its AI producing gigabytes of sexualized images of children?

How can we expect a government with this appalling attitude to properly regulate the powerful, destructive interests at the heart of democracy’s decline? How can we expect a feckless, cowardly ‘Minister of AI’ to ensure a proper balance between innovation and regulation in the context of a technology that presents so many risks and dangers? How do we trust people who fail so basic a test of moral principle?

It has always been the case that we live in a dangerous, uncertain world. But never in our lifetimes has Canada’s prosperity, its safety, and its democracy faced this much risk. If we don’t start demanding better from our governments, our institutions, our ‘leaders’, then like the frogs in the boiling pot, we are soon going to find out just how bad things can get.