dear canadians

I recently came across a post reporting on a political figure in your country who is close friends with the American Fascist JD Vance. This political figure in your country is promoting legislation to “protect” Christians and has blamed your housing crisis and employment struggles on immigrants.

Neighbor, fascists in the US sang that same song, and it’s important to be awake to the fact that struggles around housing and employment and affordable groceries have everything to do with venture capitalists intentionally tanking the economic wellbeing in democratic countries so that their handpicked fascist candidates can bait liberals, immigrants, and trans people as the reasons for your struggles. They’re not. But billionaires are.

I need you to understand that this “protect Christianity” movement is a red flag that fascism is trying to take root in your country. Please be aware that fascist political figures always mobilize the language of “protection” to attack society’s most vulnerable groups, sabotage democratic norms and, once in power, criminalize every viewpoint and every person that fails to bend the knee to their fascist vision for the world.

I also need you to understand that the way to truly prevent fascism from taking root is to take responsibility in your own postal code, your own neighborhood, for making sure your neighbors’ needs are being met. We are our siblings’ keepers, and when people fall through the cracks and inequity grows, fascism begins to take root.

No form of top-down politics is a foolproof firewall against fascism. The antidote to fascism is getting to know the neighbors in your community, come together to discuss needs that aren’t being met, and taking matters into your own hands so that no neighbor is left behind.

Fascism thrives in fear, isolation, and resentment. Now is the time for celebrating and rediscovering what it means to be a neighbor.

The internal crisis Canada may soon face isn’t an import from your neighbors down south: it is part of a coordinated plan by fascist-aligned billionaires to remake the world according to their whims— and to use Christo-fascism and hatred of immigrants and trans people as a Trojan horse to get into power.

This is a letter to my Canadian friends about the things happening on the ground in the United States and, in case your curious, what is unfolding here is the exact opposite of anything remotely resembling the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. What is happening here is monstrous; its hatred is a virus and, unless innoculated with regular doses of neighborliness, it will try to take hold where you’re at.

If you’re interested in creating local pro-democracy hubs in your community, I would be honored to speak with you and help you strategize a Canadian-centered approach to pro-democracy work that might meet the needs of your particular context.

But please hear me when I say: no established career politician can create the conditions for democracy to flourish— that responsibility, the world over, falls on the shoulders of everyday human beings who become the change they wish to see in the world. The best way to prevent fascism is through creating the community conditions where it has no opportunity to take root, because neighbors have awoken to their responsibility to care for their neighbors.

Sending you solidarity and kinship.

May we meet one day on the peace bridge and celebrate the collective triumph of neighborly love.