"It is with humility and appreciation that I accept Damien Kurek's offer to resign his seat…" — Pierre Poilievre, three days after losing the 2025 federal election
I know what you were thinking: the election is over, Canada will negotiate a new deal with Trump, and life will return to normal.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not how it's going to play out.
In a world of gangster leaders like Trump and Putin, Canada's repudiation of the MAGA march just won't stand. The authoritarian, anti-democratic "project" has been years in the making. It's been driven by the likes of Bannon and Hungary's Victor Orban — and they aren't going to let Canada stand tall as a model of liberal democracy.
The online platforms are already gearing up with BOT farms disrupting online conversations. It’s all about undermining both Carney and Canada.
Domestic Sabotage
On the domestic front, there is no way the Conservatives will give Carney the grace period needed to build trust with the public. The Maple MAGA machine will do everything it can to undermine Carney.
Just watch.
And then there's the troll-in-chief, Danielle Smith.
Since the election of Trump, she has been sowing the weeds that will sprout into a full-on national unity crisis even as our nation faces an unprecedented threat to our existence.
Since the Monday night election, people have been reaching out to me with concerns about what they are seeing online. Facebook is a swamp of vicious memes, mysterious front groups and fake accounts attacking the Prime Minister, ridiculing the "Elbows Up" spirit and pushing regional discord.
Take, for example, a woman who contacted me because she was sick to her stomach after online "news" that Prime Minister Mark Carney had been an accomplice of the notorious abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
I tried to explain to her that deep fake photos are circulating over the internet that spread this kind of disruptive hate. But the fact is, these smears don't just bubble up in the swamp farm of offshore BOTs.
This ugly claim was promoted on the side of a truck in the nation's capital by Rebel News. Yes, the same crew invited by the Debate Commission to dominate the post-debate media scrum with leaders.
Inside the MAGA Parliament
Carney will have his work cut out for him in Parliament. In the last Parliament, the Conservatives shut down all government work. Month after month, they monkey-wrenched committees and the work of the House of Commons.
It was all about proving that "Canada is broken."
The only thing that will slow down these tactics in the new Parliament is that rage king Pierre Poilievre lost his seat (Lol). This will give Carney some small breathing room. But not much. Already, Poilievre's team are engineering a forced by-election by getting a sitting Conservative to give up their seat for Poilievre.
If Carney were smart, he would let Poilievre cool his heels for as long as possible.
"Why are we not sending an armed force north to liberate Canada… And I mean it." — Tucker Carlson
MAGA Alberta
But with Poilievre on the sidelines, Alberta's troll queen, Danielle Smith, will take up the charge. She has been working full out to tie Carney's election victory to a crisis over national unity.
The Maple MAGA forces in Western Canada look at the threat to our nation from Trump and see opportunity. They see like-minded ideologies.
Just check out the Facebook site entitled MAKE ALBERTA GREAT AGAIN (a perfect case of copy cat, astro-turfing grievance).
One of their memes shows shows a young woman on the road in the dark. The message reads: "When you are leaving an abusive relationship, you aren't a traitor. And neither is Alberta."
The "abuse" in this case is laid out in Smith's lists of demands. Top of the list is insisting that Prime Minister Carney scrap the clean fuel regulations, which will lower C02 emissions from vehicles. That's like threatening to break up the country over getting rid of leaded gasoline.
It may be the lamest reason ever given for breaking up a nation, but such "grievance" won't be limited to the margins of Facebook. It will be promoted in the Calgary/ Edmonton newspaper boardrooms and the US-owned National Post media empire.
And mainstream media are loving the story of Alberta separatists — even though former Conservative leader Jason Kenney says they don't have the votes to elect a dog catcher in Alberta.
No matter. They will attempt to inflict maximum disruption as Carney tries to establish a unified front to negotiate with the menace in Washington.
The Big Winners
So, who wins?
Certainly, Canada's big oil industry is looking to score big. Their front groups and politicians have already sold the mainstream media on the pitch that spending massive amounts of public money on increasing oil production, and building pipelines is an issue of national unity. Even as the planet burns.
Justin Trudeau tried to placate this group. He paid $34 billion to build a pipeline at a time of record oil profits. He oversaw the largest increase in oil production in Canada's history. It only made him more hated and more subject to the bogus "Alberta getting screwed by Canada again" argument of the right.
But the others looking to win in this destabilization campaign will be the shadow backers of the gangster regimes — Trump and Putin.
Canada is no stranger to Russian disinformation. In 2019, the Calgary Herald reported that Russian disinformation teams were promoting the Alberta separatist movement.
In testimony, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that security agencies found Russia directly funded the prominent American provocateur Tucker Carlson. Following Carlson's public comments about invading Canada, Premier Smith Carlson joined him onstage in Calgary. Right after his fawning interview with Smith, he flew to Moscow for an even more ingratiating interview with the dictator Putin.
All peas in a pod.
Then, there was the convoy uprising that Pierre Poilievre and his MPs heavily backed — the nation's capital was occupied for weeks by groups demanding the overthrow of a duly elected government.
In 2022, the United States Congress launched an investigation into the huge role played by online Russian disinformation in fanning the flames that drove the occupation of our nation's capital.
In the MAGA world, it is unacceptable that Canada is seen as a symbol of the resilience of liberal democracy.
In the coming months, it will not just be the new Prime Minister who is put to the test. Canada, our shared values and nationhood, will be tested as well.
I know we will rise to the challenge, but only if we can identify the toxic playbook being used by Maple MAGA and the far right.
Thank you for reading.
thank you Charlie. It seems there is a never ending tide of disinformation swamping the social media platforms. The ravings of Danielle Smith and how unfair Canada is to Alberta are really baseless. If Canada hasn’t invested in Alberta, where did the Trans Mountain Pipeline come from? Big oil didnt pay for it and neither did Alberta.
I was pleased to see the Indigenous communities come out in support of keeping Canada united. We all have to do our part to fight for Canada.
Our focus has to be on strength through unity. We cant waste energy picking at the faults each of us have.
From Heather Cox Richardson's Substack: "...Germany [declared] the German right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist party that goes against Germany’s “free democratic order.” That designation is the result of a three-year investigation. It allows the government more leeway in monitoring the AfD... The German Foreign Office: “This is democracy. The decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”
Can we do this in Canada?
Investigate the CPC and its ties to the far right ecosystem?
Or, if that is not feasible, at least investigate that ecosystem using hate laws?