Canadians have to be honest about our complicity with the Yankees

We cannot claim that our hands are not stained.

In November 2024, construction cranes hover over Centre Block on Parliament Hill. The roots of imperialism run deep here, but it can be uprooted, if we’re willing to acknowledge the problem exists. | Copyright © Jake Landau, all rights reserved.

After my most recent column expressing my frustration with U.S. citizens for not doing enough to fight Trump's regime, I received some very fair criticism about whether Canadians have any right to speak on these things, considering our complicity in both British and Yankee imperialism as colonial partners.

This point is more than reasonable. Indeed, are we not the country of the residential school, the starlight tour, and the Chinese head tax? And even if you are to somehow wave these events away, despite those decades not being all so long ago, are we to seriously pretend that Canada is not actively complicit in Yankee imperialism?

Did Prime Minister Mark Carney not just call the illegal invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro “welcome news”? Does Canada not still supply arms to Israel, despite lying to the public that we would stop? Have we not exported armoured vehicles for ICE to use against USians in their brutal kidnap and murder sprees?

I am writing this column because Canada’s relationship with Yankee imperialism is worth interrogation, especially if I as a Canadian am to cast stones at the Yankees for their actions. As a friend recently told me, writers do not get to stand on a soapbox as if we are not a part of the society we criticize, and we do not get to wallow in our misery without pointing our readers in a direction that will get us out of the hole.

So, let us analyze the situation based on a clear-headed appraisal of the facts. While Canada previously lived under the umbrella of British imperialism, geopolitical realignment led us to instead integrate ourselves into the Yankee Empire. While we nominally have independence and democracy, in truth much of our economic and foreign affairs policy is set to appease the Yankees next door, regardless of whether we live under a Liberal or Conservative government.

The question then turns to what kind of status Canada truly has within the empire. Traditional Imperial Core Theory would suggest that core countries are made up not only of the United States, but also the “Western” nations including NATO-aligned Europe, Australia, Aotearoa, Canada, and certain high-GDP Asian countries like Singapore and Japan.

But this is obviously questionable in the post-neoliberal context. I do not question that there is an imperial core which extracts the wealth and resources of periphery countries using the military strength of their empire. What I do question is whether many of these countries truly exist as part of the core, or whether we’re all part of the semi-periphery, serving as middle men that manage local fiefdoms.

Frankly, I would argue the latter. It is hard to tell Greenlanders, largely indigenous, that they’re an equal part of the imperial core, when the core is threatening to annex them. Their Danish citizenship is clearly not equal to Yankee citizenship. The Yankees of the imperial core perceive themselves as the entirety of the core; they do not see vassal states like us as an equal part of their empire.

Indeed, Canada’s economic relationship with the United States is easily comparable to that of a periphery nation to the core; we export our resources to the Yankees, who turn them into more valuable products and capture most of the wealth.

But there is a fair question to be asked as a result of all this: are Canadians only upset because we’re not as privileged in the empire as we used to be? Do we simply not care about the victims of our imperialism and colonialism, and we’re just mad that the Yankees are now treating us that same way?

I can’t say that that would be a wrong appraisal of the situation, and it’s not one that engenders much sympathy in me. Canadians seem to primarily just be insulted that we’re no longer one of the Yankee’s most favoured nations. We all owe it to ourselves to question our feelings on this, myself included.

If there is anything to draw from that, however, it is not cynicism. If Canadians recognize our complicity in Yankee imperialism, then we recognize our responsibility to do something about it.

We all have varying abilities, and none of us can resist imperialism in exactly the same way. But all of us can do one thing, and that is our best. Even the smallest act of resistance serves the cause of freedom.

Maybe that means protesting outside the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate to you. Maybe that means boycotting U.S. products and travel. And maybe it means something more specific to your circumstances, based around the opportunities that present themselves to you. As long as your protest finds a way of slowing the Yankees down, you are useful, and you are doing the right thing.

In the long term, Canadians will have to reckon with our complicity in the empire that the Yankees have built for themselves. There are many countries that will rightfully have a bone to pick with us over our own colonial endeavours.

So, if we want to take responsibility, and make that process easier, it’s time for us all to start doing what we can. Let’s get to work.