Canada Fights Back and Why

The Canadian press has done a lot of reporting on how Canada is responding to Trump's trade war but not so much on Canadians' response to his administration's fascist takeover of the US government. That doesn't mean there is no response.

In Toronto recently, a group calling themselves Canada First, and clearly patterned on the US extreme right, held a rally (or more accurately tried to hold a rally) in Toronto's Christie Pits park, site of an infamous antisemitic riot in 1933. They were outnumbered 10 to 1 by anti-fascist demonstrators. 

The win last weekend was straightforward. Neighbours showed up, beat drums, chanted “Fascists go home,” and starved the rally of clean footage. City officials called it what it was—a hate demonstration—and community organizers delivered a family‑friendly counter‑rally that kept the energy non‑violent and the message unmistakable. Police reported ten arrests tied to the dueling events. And then everyone left, leaving the organizer to get pissed off that not enough Groypers and racists showed up. LOL.

 ...

 Canada First tried to plant violence and American grievance in a Canadian park with a Canadian historical memory of fighting back. Toronto—regular people with flags, drums, and kids in tow, not “left wing lunatics”—showed that our democracy does not make space for ethnic‑cleansing euphemisms or white‑supremacist cosplay.

That is what patriotism looks like here.

Charlie Angus published an article that looks at Canadian patriotism from a historical perspective. 

In the years since the Group of Seven, Canada has become a multiracial, multinational country that is increasingly urban. Our diversity is also part of who we are as a nation.

But we are, at our core, still children of the wild north. The reality of life in such a land is so that we could never survive without our trust in each other.

In Canada, there is little room for the rugged individualist. Mr. Marlboro Man wouldn't last long here; he wouldn't be able to push his vehicle out of the snowbank without asking someone for help.

Canadians have survived because we understand that we have to rely on neighbours.

Its a lesson that our neighbours to the south seem to have forgotten.