Can Canada Still Have a Conversation?

Over the past month, my essays about tariffs, Canadian sovereignty, Québec, agriculture and the changing relationship between Canada and the United States have received hundreds of thousands of views.

That has given me an unexpected window into how Canadians are speaking to one another.

I have deliberately shared my work beyond the people who already agree with me. There is little point in writing about democracy, sovereignty or national unity if the only people reading belong to the same political tribe.

I wanted conversation.

Some of what I found has encouraged me. People have questioned my conclusions, added information and shared perspectives shaped by different regions and experiences. One conservative reader told me that although we might disagree politically, conservatives are proud Canadians too.

That was precisely the shared ground I had hoped to find.

But I have also seen something else.

A POST ABOUT MILK

I recently published an essay called This Is Not Just About Milk. It examined Donald Trump’s misleading description of Canadian dairy tariffs, the strengths and weaknesses of supply management and Canada’s right to control its own agricultural system.

It was not an advertisement for the Liberal Party.

I acknowledged that supply management can raise prices for consumers and make it difficult for new farmers to enter the industry. I did not argue that American dairy is inherently dangerous or that Canada’s system should never be reformed.

I argued that Canadian farmers, food standards and agricultural policy should not be surrendered under economic pressure from a foreign government.

In many ways, that is a conservative argument.

It defends family farms, rural communities, domestic food production, national self-reliance and an established Canadian institution. Traditional conservatism is not only about buying something wherever it is cheapest. It can also mean preserving institutions and ways of life that would be difficult to rebuild once they are gone.

One commenter beneath the post identified himself as a conservative voter and said he refused to throw Canadian farmers under the bus.

That is the kind of common ground I was looking for.

But other readers decided that anyone defending Canadian farmers or questioning Trump’s account must be a Liberal.

They called people “idiots,” “brainwashed” and “stupid Liberal voters.” One thanked another commenter for “destroying Canada.” People who had not declared any Liberal allegiance were blamed for the national debt, food-bank use, foreign aid, China and almost every other grievance the commenters carried.

The subject under discussion was dairy farming.

WHEN LABELS REPLACE READING

One reader accused me of provoking the hostility beneath the post: “Look at all these comments you’ve drummed up.”

But writing about a contested public issue is not the same as causing other adults to become abusive. I presented an argument. Each person remained responsible for how they chose to respond.

The most revealing comment came from someone insisting that I had failed to explain Canada’s dairy tariffs. In the same comment, he admitted, “I couldn’t stomach to read through the whole thing.”

He then called me childish, egotistical, spoiled, narcissistic and self-centred. He suggested that I had copied the essay, did not understand it and needed to explain the issue in my own words.

The explanation he demanded was contained in the essay he had chosen not to read.

That contradiction captures the problem.

He had not read the argument, but he had already decided it did not exist. The purpose of the comment was no longer to understand supply management. It was to discredit the person who had complicated a familiar political story.

This is not what I mean by discourse.

Discourse can be forceful. People can challenge my facts, reject my interpretation and tell me where they believe my reasoning fails. I am not asking everyone to agree with me or to speak without emotion.

But conversation requires one basic act: reading or listening carefully enough to understand what the other person actually said.

Once we decide what kind of person someone is, we no longer have to consider the argument. If the writer can be labelled Liberal, conservative, socialist, elitist or brainwashed, the discomfort disappears.

Political sorting replaces thought.

THE LOUDEST VOICES ARE NOT THE WHOLE COUNTRY

The hostile comments occupied an enormous amount of visual space, but they were not the whole response.

I shared the essay in Only in Canada, a large group containing people from across the political spectrum. That version received more than 89,000 views, approximately 1,200 positive reactions and nearly 500 shares.

The version on my own Facebook page received approximately 25,000 views and more than 1,800 engagements. Another version in Canadians Against Trump, where sharing is restricted, received about 2,700 views and 125 positive reactions.

The contentious group produced the most belligerent comments. It also produced by far the greatest reach.

Those two facts belong together.

The same space that exposed our political division also demonstrated an appetite for something more thoughtful. Hundreds of people passed the essay into their own networks. A conservative defended farmers. Many quieter readers watched, considered and shared without entering the fight.

This is one of the distortions of social media. Twenty furious people can appear to overwhelm a conversation while hundreds or thousands of others are reading silently. One person writing several hundred aggressive words is more visible than a hundred people who simply pause and think.

Volume is not consensus.

Recent polling found that roughly four in five Canadians view Donald Trump unfavourably. That does not mean four in five Canadians support Mark Carney or the Liberal Party. Opposition to Trump’s conduct and concern for Canadian sovereignty cross party lines.

The loud minority matters because it can make itself appear larger than it is. It can also exhaust reasonable people until they withdraw.

Most people do not want to expose themselves to that kind of aggression.

I understand that. But it does not affect me personally in the same way. I have moderated Facebook conversations for years. I know the difference between disagreement and abuse. I do not feel obligated to respond to every accusation, and I will restrict someone who repeatedly insults people or uses my work as a dumping ground for unrelated rage.

Their behaviour does not belong to me.

Allowing some of it to remain visible can also serve a purpose. Readers can compare the original argument with the reaction it produced and decide for themselves what kind of conversation is taking place.

The contrast does the work.

NOT PARTY LOYALTY

My political loyalties do not belong permanently to any party.

I do not support Mark Carney simply because he leads the Liberal Party. I support him at this moment because I believe he is the strongest leader available for the situation Canada is facing.

Canada is being subjected to economic pressure by its largest trading partner and forced to reconsider relationships on which our country has depended for generations. This moment requires someone who understands international finance, trade, institutions and alliances.

Carney is intelligent, economically experienced and working under extraordinary pressure. He is trying to build alliances, diversify trade, create Canadian jobs and reduce our dependence on an increasingly unpredictable United States.

I do not agree with every decision he makes, and I do not believe any leader should be above scrutiny. Supporting someone is not the same as surrendering judgment.

In another time, a different kind of leader may be what Canada needs. Leadership is contextual. The question is not whether Carney is perfect. The question is whether he understands the present threat, is acting in Canada’s interest and can build a path through it.

Right now, I believe he is the right person for that job.

That is not party loyalty. It is a judgment about the person and the moment.

We should be able to recognize competence in someone from a party we have not traditionally supported. We should also be able to criticize a party we usually support without being accused of betrayal.

That is what political independence looks like.

THE RIGHT TO DECIDE FOR OURSELVES

This is not about being Liberal or Conservative. It is about identifying the values and institutions that matter to us as Canadians and deciding what we are willing to protect.

Some of those values may be called liberal: public healthcare, education, human rights and protection from discrimination.

Others may be called conservative: fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, family farms, community stability, national self-reliance and the careful preservation of institutions that serve us.

Most Canadians carry some combination of both.

We should be able to criticize Carney without assuming he is conspiring against Canada. We should be able to defend supply management without pretending it has no weaknesses. We should be able to question government spending without declaring every public institution corrupt.

These are Canadian arguments, and we must retain the freedom to have them.

If our economic and political choices are dictated by the United States, we do not become more free. We lose the power to decide which parts of our system should be preserved, which should be reformed and what kind of country we want to become.

We can argue about supply management, public broadcasting, environmental regulation, public spending, healthcare, immigration and the size of government.

We should argue about them.

But those arguments remain meaningful only if Canadians retain the power to make the final decisions.

Sovereignty does not require agreement. It protects our right to disagree and still decide together.

CALM DOES NOT MEAN PASSIVE

The answer to belligerence is not greater belligerence.

But neither is it silence.

Canadians who still believe in evidence, complexity and democratic conversation need to speak with clarity and confidence. Calm does not mean passive. Nuance does not mean weak. Refusing to shout does not require surrendering the public square.

I am not going to stop writing because some people refuse to read or respond with personal attacks. If anything, those reactions demonstrate why more Canadians need to remain visible.

Canada still has an opportunity to resist the kind of division that has transformed the United States. But we cannot assume that our institutions or national character will protect us automatically.

Democracy is something citizens practise every time we decide whether to listen, whether to verify, whether to humiliate and whether to remain in conversation with someone who does not belong to our political tribe.

I am not looking for a side to defeat.

I am looking for the ground on which Canadians can still stand together.