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What If the Fight for Canadian Sovereignty Goes Too Far?

A national rallying cry could make us harder, meaner, and more suspicious

In less than two years, from the time when Donald Trump’s second term as president began, the idea of needing to protect Canada’s sovereignty went from something seldom thought of to being a focal point of our nation’s social and political conversation. It has also become the guiding principle for our government’s policies. The country suddenly found itself vulnerable in a way we have not experienced in our lifetime.

In this context, there is no question that Canada needs to take urgent measures to protect our sovereignty. To do so, Canada is implementing a host of measures aimed at defending its independence, its territory, its economy, its citizens, and the integrity of our institutions—including our electoral processes—from threats by outside forces.

While this shift to a sovereignty-focused approach is necessary, it should be treated as a “necessary evil” undertaken only with great caution. Dedicating our national attention to sovereignty has risks. At its best, the sovereignty Canada is pursuing can be a healthy exercise focused on nation-building, unity, the pursuit of new opportunities for our economy, and a renewed approach to engaging the world; at its worst, sovereignty is a gateway to hyper-nationalism, militarism, isolationism, diminished prosperity, and a pattern of rights violations.

As we work to defend our sovereignty, therefore, it is imperative that we do not lose ourselves in the process.

The renewed focus on sovereignty has changed everything—from the way we think about our economy to the priorities of our international diplomacy to what we buy at the grocery store. When a country persistently takes actions built around a certain organizing principle, its way of thinking about the world changes shaped by those actions. What makes this so problematic is that it is gradual, incremental, and, in a way, insidious. We likely won’t even notice it happening.

When shifts are gradual and subtle, our mental goalposts for what is normal and acceptable get moved; we don’t realize how far we’ve shifted because we lose track of where we started. Experts call this “shifting baseline syndrome,” and it is seen in all sorts of human behaviours, from ethical values to adoption of technologies to our evaluation of ecosystem health.

These shifts can involve a degree of cognitive dissonance, where we refuse to acknowledge to ourselves that a shift in our thinking has occurred; when directly confronted with a question about our values, we may profess belief in a given principle, despite the fact that our actions and opinions reveal that we have, in fact, shifted away from that principle. We may rationalize these decisions as not being at odds with our values, even though, objectively, they are.

Canadians may continue to think that we are a society that welcomes outsiders, even if we begin to display behaviours and support policies that have practical effects to the contrary, justifying those policies as necessary given the current circumstances. Defending sovereignty can sometimes mean ignoring and setting aside our country’s central character, including our fundamental commitment to democracy and human rights.

The changes may include treating the world as a “threat environment,” where foreign states and their actions are treated with a high degree of suspicion and evaluated, first and foremost, as potential risks to our national security. Another may be the development of an in-group/out-group mentality, where the insulated national identity becomes the “in-group.” This creates the basis for “othering” anyone not perceived as “one of us,” leading to division, mistrust, and discrimination.

Another change may be a self-centred cultural approach, where we become indifferent to the well-being of others, where we increasingly view everything exclusively through the lens of the national self-interest. This approach is a very zero-sum mentality, which is detrimental to effective partnerships and contributes to a more adversarial global environment.

Another thing to look out for would be social “militarism,” where our efforts to expand our military lead us to develop a more aggressive posture and the military becomes the solution to our problems. Countries that have large militaries risk using those militaries, especially if these forces become a central source of pride.

These changes in sentiment will be largely driven by our fear-based cognitive processes, which social psychologists have found dominate our cognitive capabilities and limit our ability to think of positives. This can occur chronically where the source of fear persists over time. What’s more, a feeling of threat from one crisis can exponentially increase our anxiety about other crises and our overall sense of danger. This can happen not just with acute fear but with slow-burning fears or chronic stress, such as climate anxiety, fear of terrorism, and, indeed, threats to our sovereign security.

Two areas require particular........

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