Though the Vikings were the first Europeans to successfully set sail for North America (roughly ~1000 AD, 500 years before Christopher Columbus), the first to set up shop were the French. From Quebec City - established in 1608 - French and Metis settlements stretched all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico (or in Trump speak, “The Gulf of America”).

A couple years later, Britain established Cuper’s Cove in Newfoundland (1610).

The 13 Colonies (modern day US: from New Hampshire all the way down to Georgia in the south).

And Rupert’s Land (modern day Canada: ON, parts of QC, Nunavut, NWT, MB, SK, parts of AB).

Disputes over territory and resources eventually led to The Seven years War. Britain won, France lost. The Brits (mostly) let the French keep their language and culture despite their defeat.

War soon broke out again. Britain’s 13 Colonies were becoming increasingly unhappy with ‘colony status’ (exploited for their resources). So they voiced their frustrations:

The 13 Colonies: “We’re overtaxed and under-represented - it’s not fair.”

The British ruling class (who viewed North American settlers as their social, intellectual, and moral inferiors): “We don’t care.”’

Recognizing the Crown wasn’t going to give up their cash cow without a fight, the 13 Colonies went to war for political and economic independence (the American Revolutionary War). Many of those who remained loyal to Britain (‘the Loyalists’) fled north to the Province of Canada.

It took over 8 years to win freedom from imperial rule, after which the 13 Colonies became the United States of America.

The first North American trade war was initiated by the Province of Canada. Britain wanted to punish the former 13 Colonies for doing business with their enemy, (Napoleonic) France.

In retaliation, the United States invaded the Province of Canada, resulting in the War of 1812.

It didn’t last long.

A Peace Treaty was signed in 1814 whereby the original borders were re-drawn, making the Canada-US border the longest demilitarized zone in the world.

Despite this, the Americans continued to live rent-free in the minds of Canada’s Colonial Elites and British Loyalists, even though grievances mirroring those of the former 13 Colonies were beginning to pop up across the Province of Canada:

Eager to suppress another uprising, Queen Victoria responded by appointing Ottawa our national seat of government, and eventually granted Canada Dominion Status (the British North America Act) in 1867.

Mark Twain’s claim that history doesn’t repeat, but often rhymes, is evident in the Province of Alberta’s complaint that they’re being“overtaxed and under-represented” by Colonial Elites and British Loyalists in Ottawa, and in the CAN-US trade war where Canada’s decision to “firm up” its relationship with their neighbour’s enemy, Xi Jinping, echoes back to the US’s decision to do business with Napoleon.

So while I’m no trade or constitutional law expert (unlike so many), I do know that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Thanks for reading,

d

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I once joked that ‘crisis was the spice of life’, but after years of trying to digest one jalapeño of a national disaster after another (the latest: Carney declares “economic war”with the US) I’m at risk of losing my stomach lining.

If you’re anything like me and find that salacious soundbites leave you reaching for the Pepto-Bismol, feast on these mental meals instead.

BOOK #1:

I recently re-read “Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom” by Thomas E. Ricks. It was published in 2017, and nearly 10 years later, is every bit as relevant now as it was then. So if you need some encouragement to stick it out on the high (and often lonely) road - read this book!

“Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930s - Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they’d died then, history would scarcely remember them.

At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the twentieth century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and deeds, against the totalitarian threat. In a crucial moment, they responded - first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then by acting on their beliefs. In doing so, they helped keep the West’s compass set toward freedom and its due north.

It’s not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930s, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were in the ascent everywhere. Some decried the scourge of communism but saw in Hilter and Mussolini “men we could do business with” - if not, in fact, saviors. Others saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign, but tended to view communism as the path to salvation.

Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom - that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and hard to be resisted.

In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved to be their age’s necessary men.

The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the 1940s in opposition to freedom’s enemies. Though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell’s reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its fifty-year course - and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day.

Taken together in Thomas E Ricks’s masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin.”

BOOK #2:

Do you wonder why Canada feels less and less ‘Canadian’, but aren’t sure what’s causing the drift - read this book!

A friend from the MPP (Master of Public Policy) program won the capstone of the year award for his research on foreign interference in Canada’s post-secondary institutions. During our program, we worked together on an assignment that had us combing through the results of Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission; results which were alarming.

“The Mosaic Effect: How the Chinese Communist Party Started a Hybrid War in America’s Backyard” by Scott McGregor & Ina Mitchell rings the same alarm, except it paints a more comprehensive picture.

China is reshaping Canada’s political, economic, and cultural landscape, which the authors substantiate in this hyper-sourced book (half of which is citations).

Here’s an excerpt from the Afterward written by Michel Juneau-Katsuya (former senior intelligence officer and manager at CSIS):

“When we examine the actions of the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the work of its intelligence services, we arrive at a singular conclusion: they are formidable adversaries. Such an international organization, with its numerous advantages, should not be underestimated. To dismiss or fail to recognize this threat is sheer ignorance, naivety, or deliberate deception. Regrettably, throughout my 40-year career, I’ve encountered all three of these attitudes from our Canadian political elite.

Presently, Canada, and by extension other Western democracies, face a stark reality: China has been outmaneuvering them for decades. They are poised to exert control, aided by willing domestic and international collaborators.”

In January 2026, three years after the publication of The Mosaic Effect (2023) and a year after the release of the final Foreign Interference Commission report (2025), our Prime Minister flew to Beijing to “firm up” relations between Canada and China: Canada’s Mark Carney refers to ‘new world order’ during historic visit to China.

BOOK #3:

For those who could use a refresher course on Canada’s political and judicial systems (and the historical framework in which they took shape), I recommended “Reconnect to Canada: A Guide for Empowered Canadians” by Canadian lawyer and advocate, Eva Chipiuk.

It’s a straightforward read and is neatly chunked into the following 5 sections, complete with summary points:

Chapter 1: Navigating History: Foundations of Democracy in Canada

Chapter 2: Deep Dive into the Charter

Chapter 3: Governance and the Division of Powers

Chapter 4: The Pillars of Justice - Understanding Canada’s Legal System

Chapter 5: The Heart of Civic Engagement

Democracy is the exception, not the rule. If citizens no longer value individual power and freedom enough to educate themselves and actively participate in the democratic process (the most basic function being to cast an informed vote), there are those who will happily ‘relieve’ us of the burden.

Empower yourself - read the book!

BOOK #4:

Confused about the culture wars or what it means to be an ‘American’ or ‘Canadian’? Read this book: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

Here’s the summary from the author’s website:

“North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn’t confront or assimilate into an “American” or “Canadian” culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory.

In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. He illustrates and explains why “American” values vary sharply from one region to another and how these differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent’s history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the “blue county/red county” maps of recent presidential elections. A revolutionary and revelatory take on how America’s myriad have shaped our past and are molding our future.

Since American Nations‘ publication, its model of North American regional cultures has been adopted as a research tool by journalists, political scientists, public health researchers, psychologists, business professors, and others and informs the data journalism work Woodard does at Nationhood Lab, the think thank project he founded at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University. (If you’re an academic researcher looking for a technical and theoretical explanation of the American Nations model, this peer-reviewed paper lays it out.)

The book now includes an Epilogue bringing the story up into our present, Trump-inflected age.”

I’ll close with a quote from Churchill: “You should obtain accurate information because no judgement can be formed without it.”

As such, happy reading,

d

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This post is dedicated to my kinda-cousin (we used to be related) with whom I’ve had many conversations about the rise of Canada’s anti-excellence culture.

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Conservative MP Jamil Jivani meets with U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in this photo obtained by National Post.

Once upon a time Jamil Jivani wrote a column in the National Post that he called his ‘love letter’ to me because in sharing my (at the time) controversial views on Canada’s public education system,…

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Demonstrators in Warsaw protest government plan to restrict journalists' work in the Poland's parliament building. (Photo by NuPhoto/Getty)

That we’re living in a time of profoundly fractured narratives was made evident in a recent conversation with a former colleague.

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(PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS/POSTMEDIA FILES)

Michael Kovrig is a Canadian geopolitical advisor, analyst, former diplomat, and current senior advisor on Asia-Pacific affairs with the International Crisis Group.

He is one of the two Michaels taken prisoner in China in retaliation for Canada’s participation in the 2018 arrest of Huawei execu…

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A recent article in the National Post unpacks the latest census results, which reveal that of the G7 countries, Canada experienced the fastest population growth and has the highest proportion of foreign-born people who are now citizens.

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Happy New Year!

From the uprisings across Iran, to the Christmas Day drone strikes in Sokoto state, Nigeria, to the capture of Maduro in Venezuela, it’s fair to say we’re witnessing a profound geopolitical vibe shift.

A vibe shift you’ll likely characterize as ‘negative’ if you sympathize with Khomeini, Boko Haram, ISIS, and/or Maduro, and ‘positive’ if y…

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I had originally planned this piece for substack because I doubted any paper would print it. But after the Western Standard put a call out to their contributors asking for holiday content, I pitched it and was pleased to have it accepted.

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Before I tell you about getting robbed in Red Square, I want to recommend the following holiday reads which may shift the way you see current events.

1. Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice - Bill Browder (realities of modern Russia)

2. Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now - Jan Wong (the making of moder…

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I declare that declining marriage and birth rates, alongside the growing “epidemic” of loneliness, are due, in part, to the fact that too many men are like Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (and his enablers), while too few are like 50 Cent.

Earlier this week, Curtis Jackson (aka 50 Cent) released his 4-part Netflix Series, Sean Combs: The Reckoning, about one of the m…

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For those not familiar, here’s the origin of the (in)famous line - “It’s the economy, stupid” - delivered by Bill Clinton’s lead campaign strategist, James Carville, in 1992.

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From Canada’s west coast to its east, ideological activism has overtaken academics as the primary concern of k-12 school boards, teachers unions, and post-secondary teacher training programs. If you don’t believe me, conduct a simple google search of any of the above.

As such, the case against school choice - which I believe to be at the heart of the…

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I found myself seated next to a cowboy on a recent flight.

I’d been assigned the window seat, but the kid behind me was treating it like his own personal punching bag so, when it appeared no one else was boarding, I moved to the one at the end of the empty row. Which is when the cowboy walked up.

“Scuse me, miss - either I’m readin’ this wrong, or you’re …

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If you’re not in Alberta, you probably won’t know about “spanker-gate”. But if you are and you’re interested in my response, this is it: “Bruce McAllister said in public what teachers say in private: parents are failing at child discipline.”

Hopefully it goes without saying that this does not apply to all parents, however, given that the majority of teac…

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I went to Charlie Kirk’s Calgary vigil. In part, because I prefer to see things for myself rather than rely on an intermediary, and because I admired his commitment to open dialogue. It was a …

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According to Statistics Canada, nearly half of Canadians are insufficiently literate to fully participate in society. And according to the World Population Review and Book Net, Canadians come in last among G-7 countries and are in the bottom of other OECD countries when it comes to the number of books read per year.

Sad Reading Facts Recap

Many Canadians …

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Edmonton School Boards are threatening to ban books, but given that huge swaths of Canadians don’t (or can’t) read, the school board’s retaliatory book bans aren’t worth the digital ink with which they’re printed.

According to 2024 data from the World Population Review, the average American reads more books per year than citizens in any other country. O…

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The school year kicked off with a behind-the-bike-racks fight: to the right, is the Alberta government, and to the left, is The Edmonton Public School Board.  

And while I refused to ever don a disgusting fluorescent safety-vest, strap on a first-aid fanny pack, or carry a walkie-talkie during my tenure as a public school teacher, I have mediated a fight…

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https://thehub.ca/2025/09/02/danella-aichele-canadas-immigration-policy-needs-to-start-in-the-classroom/

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