This week, much of Canada’s media and punditry class appeared to suffer a collective meltdown after Donald Trump ordered U.S. forces to capture a criminal dictator and drug lord and bring him to justice. The reaction was as predictable as a January snowstorm: emergency panels, pearl-clutching op-eds, and solemn lectures about “norms,” “stability,” and the sanctity of the international order.
In what can only be described as a masterclass in cognitive dissonance, the usual coalition of professional protestors—those fearless defenders of freedom who never leave home without a mask, a megaphone, a Hamas flag, and a keffiyeh—descended on U.S. embassies and consulates across Canada and beyond. Their noble crusade? Demanding the return of Venezuela’s very own dictator-thug. Because, of course, nothing screams “justice” like cheering for authoritarianism.
Thankfully, reality showed up—and it didn’t need a disguise. Many of the more than eight million Venezuelans who fled their collapsing homeland to escape Maduro’s brutality, including those now in Canada, turned out to confront this contrived protest carnival. They voiced strong support for U.S. actions, exposing the irony-impaired activists for what they are: cheerleaders for the very tyranny others risked everything to escape.
Turns out, people who’ve actually lived under a dictatorship aren’t quite as enthusiastic about bringing it back as the latte-fueled silver-spooned socialist enclave outside the embassy. Who knew?
Strikingly absent from this faux outrage has been comparable concern for the brutal suppression of civil unrest in Iran, the severe human-rights abuses and repression in Syria, including the slaughter of the Druze, the ongoing war crimes committed by Russia, or the routine repression carried out by regimes such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Myanmar. On those fronts, much of the commentariat is either silent, oddly understanding, or quick to blame the West instead.
Meanwhile, the clearest ongoing genocide in Africa is unfolding in Sudan’s Darfur region. Armed forces—particularly the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—are carrying out mass killings and ethnic cleansing against non-Arab groups, including the Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa. Entire communities have been destroyed, civilians targeted because of their identity, and millions displaced. Human-rights organizations warn that the violence meets, or is rapidly approaching, the legal definition of genocide.
Elsewhere in Africa, including eastern Congo, parts of the Sahel, and Nigeria, horrific mass atrocities continue—but Darfur stands apart as the most widely recognized case of an active, targeted genocide today.
Apparently, decisive action against a criminal tyrant is only unacceptable when carried out by someone we’re culturally conditioned to despise.
The hypocrisy in Canada by our legacy media, especially the CBC and a slew of misinformed and ‘expert’ entitled pundits, is striking and familiar.
That same reflex now dominates our domestic discourse. For years, Canadians have been encouraged to believe that Donald Trump—and America more broadly—are responsible for nearly everything that ails our country. It’s comforting. It’s lazy. And it’s false.
The real challenge facing Canada is not Trump or America. It’s us.
Trump/America did not rack up a $1.3-trillion federal debt over the past decade with precious little to show for it.
Trump/America did not hollow out Canada’s health-care system by burying it under layers of bureaucracy and administration while patients waited and suffered.
Trump/America did not allow lobbyists to exert staggering influence over public policy, neutering Parliament and reducing MPs to obedient sheep.
Trump/America did not tell Canada it was acceptable to chronically underfund its commitments to NATO and NORAD while expecting the Americans and other allies to pick up the slack.
Trump/America did not hollow out our cities or enable a drug and crime crisis by normalizing policies that subsidize addiction rather than aggressively treat it.
Trump/America did not dismantle a once-respected, points-based immigration system and replace it with a chaotic mix of permanent and temporary programs that brought more than six million people into the country in just seven years—817,000 in the first four months of 2025 alone—despite an acute housing shortage and overwhelmed healthcare and social system.
Trump/America did not hand out billions of dollars in generous social benefits to newcomers who have never contributed one penny to Canada’s healthcare or social infrastructure.
Trump/America did not fail to build the hospitals, housing, transit, and social infrastructure required to support both existing Canadians and millions of additional residents brought in without a credible plan.
Trump/America did not create a situation where food bank usage remains at record highs—about 2.2 million visits every month, nearly double 2019 levels—with one-third of those visits by children and nearly one in five users employed.
Trump/America did not build an economy dominated by monopolies: a banking oligopoly, telecom monopoly, grocery monopoly, fuel monopoly, airline monopoly, and insurance monopoly—each operating with minimal competition and maximum impunity.
Trump/America did not cause runaway food inflation or governments’ chronic inability to complete major projects on time and on budget.
Trump/America did not shut down large portions of Canada’s energy capacity or drive investment and investors out of the country.
Trump/America did not create a generation of Canadians under 40 who believe they will never own a home, build wealth, or get ahead.
Trump/America did not preside over the collapse of Canada’s productivity, now the worst in the G7.
Trump/America did not turn federal agencies into slow-moving, risk-averse fortresses where accountability goes to die.
Trump/America did not freeze Canadians’ bank accounts for supporting protests against the government’s COVID policy.
Trump/America did not invoke the Emergency Measures Act against truckers and protesters—an act akin to swatting a fly with a sledgehammer.
Trump/America did not pass Bill C-11, a law that constrains online speech through financial penalty—legislation heavily shaped by legacy media lobbyists to protect incumbents, including the government-funded CBC, at the expense of open discourse.
Trump/America didn’t allow a culture of government communications to become so sanitized and scripted that even basic truths require 3 approvals and a séance.
Trump/America did not weaken criminal and bail laws to the point where violent offenders, gang members, rapists, and even cop-killers are routinely released.
Trump/America are not responsible for violent, openly antisemitic protests in major Canadian cities—some involving recent arrivals—where calls for intifada and violence against Jews are tolerated under a perverse weaponized interpretation of the Charter of Rights.
No, we did all of that ourselves. Proudly. With a maple-coated, sugary arrogance that perfectly matches our national talent for avoiding responsibility while lecturing the rest of the world.
Blaming Trump and America may feel satisfying, but it won’t build hospitals, restore housing affordability, fix immigration policy, or repair public trust. It won’t improve productivity, restore public safety, or strengthen democratic accountability.
Every time we scapegoat the United States, we delay the reckoning Canada desperately needs.
Canada does not lack wealth, talent, or opportunity. It lacks honesty and political courage.
Our crises—in housing, healthcare, immigration, productivity, public safety, and governance—are not imported. They are homegrown.
The first step forward is uncomfortable but necessary: admit the truth.
Canada’s biggest threat isn’t Trump. It isn’t America. It’s us.
Photo: iStock
