Canada’s new “elbows up” nationalism frames itself as resistance to Trump and US expansionism—but it risks recycling colonial myths. By glossing over the Mohawk Resistance and ongoing land theft, patriotic rhetoric hides violence against Indigenous peoples. Real strength means truth, reconciliation, and resisting colonialism, not shallow nostalgia.

Countless books have explored the sociopolitical foundations of horror—its entanglements with gender, Blackness, madness, war and capitalism. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the genre’s relationship with settler colonialism, despite the enduring prominence of the “Indian burial ground” trope in the earlier decades of the genre.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Bill C-5 signals a dramatic shift in Canadian politics, allowing major industrial projects to bypass environmental and Indigenous consultation. This move threatens to rupture Canada’s liberal foundations, sparking Indigenous resistance and raising fears of an authoritarian turn in response to growing civil unrest and dissent.

In the culmination of a historic consultation process in Guatemala, the Xinka Indigenous people have just presented their decision to the Guatemalan government, denying consent over the future of Vancouver-based Pan American Silver’s Escobal mine. This is a clear example of Indigenous peoples exerting their right to decide what happens on their territory.

The dominant class and its cheerleaders, intent on doubling down to maintain a social system which proudly features gross inequality and inequity, are out on top. The working class and its leftist protagonists, hoping to fuel a movement for a radical rethinking of our polity to get closer to a social system which advances equality and altruism, find themselves at the bottom.

It is imperative for socialists to ally with Indigenous peoples and oppose Albertan independence, as separation would constitute an enormous setback for Indigenous rights in the region. Even as Canada continues to renege on its historic and contemporary promises to Indigenous peoples, an ultraconservative independent Alberta would certainly be far worse.

Ignoring Indigenous nations and rights as Canada enters a new economic chapter would shred Canada’s reputation, much as ignoring the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement shreds America’s. Ignoring us is contrary to the last decade of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation work and is a risk to both the legitimacy of political elites and the profitability of Canadian industries.

It’s time for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives to move on from Aaron Gunn and leave residential school denialism behind once and for all. If the Conservatives are truly serious about “common sense,” they must unequivocally renounce residential school denialism—or else risk paying a political price on April 28.

Pretty much everything that we might find redeemable about Canadian society has come as a result of community-based struggles and social movements. Yet, most people have little awareness of the historical significance of collective action because public memory practices rarely recollect, never mind detail, histories of activism.

Inuit hunters from a small community in Nunavut are demanding a reassessment of a proposed expansion to an iron ore mine. Baffinland Iron Mines intends to build a port and railway to Steensby Inlet, near the Inuit community of Igloolik, as part of a plan to quadruple production at its Mary River Mine. The port and railway were originally approved by the Government of Canada in 2012.