The Western Surrender: Canada is the wokest country in the world

An anti police in Toronto on Saturday Sept. 12, 2020. Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Photo by Ernest Doroszuk /Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Post

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All that is great about western civilization is being undermined by a progressive political and cultural project that aims to reject and rewrite our history, prioritize group identity above the individual and embed this agenda into our laws and institutions. Welcome to The Western Surrender, an NP Comment series ranking the five Anglosphere countries by their adoption of these ideas. Today we feature No. 1, Canada. 

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Each of the major Anglo states is struggling with shame for their past, and, to cope, has turned to a new philosophy of anti-West, anti-white, decolonial, self-obliterating multiculturalism that elevates foreign above familiar. But it’s Canada, of all places, that seared this way of thinking into its Constitution and social matrix without democratic debate.

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Reconciliation. Diversity, equity and inclusion. Soft-on-crime rules. Immigration levels so high they shift national identity. If they weren’t written into the Constitution directly, they were interpreted into its text by judges, or were practiced into existence by civil servants. It’s a mission that most accept wholeheartedly: it’s so often taught that Canada’s history is one of fighting injustice and expanding the franchise, which means abandoning old points of pride and finding new ones on the progressive path towards inclusion.  

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Of these pillars holding up new Canada, it’s that of reconciliation that bears the most weight. This is the agreed-upon state policy of making amends to the Indigenous people of Canada for colonizing the territory and raising a British state upon it.

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It’s not something our forebears would have apologized for at the time. When they arrived, North America was home to societies with varying degrees of technological development, all centuries behind Europe. Land was obtained through agreement and through settlement, and armed resistance couldn’t thwart it. It was a conquest. Attempts were made to transition the previous occupants over to a European-style life, many of which wouldn’t be acceptable under today’s circumstances, but were considered gracious at the time. These included reserved lands, farming equipment, engagement with religion and, often through the church, free school for the children.

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This came at the expense of Indigenous culture, particularly for the kids who ended up in residential schools. Some lost family connections; others were physically or sexually abused. Some never returned home — the leading cause of death in residential schools, as with European orphanages, was tuberculosis. 

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These tragedies, and the general plight of Indigenous people, were overlooked for a time. But progressive voices and organizations were drawn to the cause as early as the 1960s, parallel to the civil rights movement of the United States. By the 1970s, the courts had invented the concept of Aboriginal title, which, in its nascent, limited form, wasn’t threatening to void people of private property rights. By the 1980s, Parliament had agreed to include a section in its addendum to the Constitution — Section 35 — to constitutionalize treaty and Aboriginal rights without really understanding what that meant.