Corporations Control Canada’s Infrastructure — But the Major Parties Won’t Confront Them

Confident that he will be able to secure a third term in office, Justin Trudeau has called a federal election. His gambit is a bold one and may backfire — the election, scheduled for this Monday, is taking place against a backdrop of a series of long-standing crises.

First and foremost is the damage inflicted on Canadian society by the global pandemic, which the country has failed to curb. The climate crisis, made salient by a summer of extreme and deadly weather, also looms large. In June, members of the Cowessess First Nation discovered 751 unmarked graves containing the bones of thousands of indigenous children who perished in residential schools. This discovery has drawn public attention to the North American nation’s gruesome history of settler colonialism. Amid these crises, the price of housing has increased by almost 40 percent in just one year, ending many middle-class dreams and further exacerbating the misery of the poor.

Rhetorically, the Liberal Party has promised a great deal; in practice, they have done very little. Climate change is one of the clearest examples of Trudeau’s party’s lack of boldness. In last week’s English-language debate, all opposition party leaders highlighted Trudeau’s lamentable record of having presided over rising carbon emissions year after year. Canada is, according to Human Rights Watch, “the only G7 country whose emissions are substantially higher than 1990 levels.” Per capita, the country is the second-largest financier of fossil fuels in the world. China currently occupies first place.

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives, the two parties with realistic hopes of governing, support maintaining the status quo in Canada’s energy sector. Despite the campaign trail sniping and platform promises of the two major parties, they are both in agreement about maintaining the most pathological elements of the Canadian state.