Editors Note: this publication was originally titled “Riel Republicans” in 2022 before being rebranded as Canadian Republican Network in 2025. Some of the information detailed here is now outdated to the current publication.
We started Riel Republicans as a media collective intended to be the first step towards building a movement for popular sovereignty in Canada.
Our politics are about striving towards a Canadian continentalism in the vision of the Honourable Louis Riel, the Métis revolutionary, and the true founding father for the Canadian Republic.
Presently, we are at the beginning of something.
We understand the necessity for a new politics in the North. However, building a political party from scratch is a tall order, one only given with a mandate from popular support of the masses, not to mention requiring a good deal of resources. We realize our immediate task at hand is to popularize these ideas and start connecting people across Canada.
Humans naturally have the desire to grow, create, and transcend.
The current period of late-stage capitalism is not sustainable for the people of Canada. The historic colonial conditions for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples and the overall restrictive economic conditions for all citizens is withholding our collective potential. This reactionary nature is rooted in the founding of the British Dominion based around imperialist extractivism, not actually building up these lands colonized by the British Crown.
In the emerging multipolar world of win-win international relations, there are numerous continentalist projects which simultaneously seek to break free from global finance to create stronger mutual cooperation for everyone. We desire to position the Canadian Republic as part of this world historical trajectory of continentalism, as opposed to the current reactionary geopolitical orientation which has tied the British Dominion of Canada to a dying empire of global finance, the trans-Atlantic axis of Wall Street and the City of London.
The national chauvinism of the populist right-wing and the national nihilism of the anarchist left-wing are both inadequate approaches to building a constructive politics desperately needed in Canada. Instead, we must look to a radical republican and civilizational model including plurinationalism for First Nations, advocate revolutionary Pan-American solidarity with our neighbors in Latin America, as well as the working class movements in the United States of America, in parallel to our efforts up North. We must reorient Canada away from Anglo-American imperialism by leaving NATO and instead seek continental integration by joining ALBA.
Interestingly, continentalism and plurnationalism have been attempted before for building a modern state in the North, the original resistance state of Manitoba. It is important to have a story, something to believe in, to show this politics is part of a deeper historical current, to look into the past to explain our present and help us chart the future for all peoples here. As many are questioning the politics that underpin the old British Dominion, we seek to show an alternative in the form of the new Canadian Republic.
We have chosen the Honourable Louis Riel as our namesake and figurehead of the movement, the Father of Manitoba. Although his rebellion fought against the state that what would become “Canada,” he is the true founding father, as we believe his values are the values of people today who want to see a way out of imperialism. Imagine if his vision for Manitoba was what won out in the North and became the whole country for Canada?
Riel led the Red River Rebellion in 1869 which created the Manitoban State in 1870, they again the took up arms to challenge the Dominion in 1885. Manitoba under the leadership of Louis Riel fought against the nascent Canadian state for the rights of their Métis and Indigenous peoples, as well as allied settlers in the prairies who felt sold out by the British Crown’s neglect. The base of this rebellion shows the base for the republican movement today bridging Indigenous peoples from underdeveloped nations and Canadians in neglected regions striving to bring prosperity to where they live.
While Riel is often branded a “traitor” in many history textbooks, despite him never even being a part of British North America, regardless, Riel was a freedom fighter and an inspiration to all who fight for real justice past, present, and future. It is true that “treason to empire is loyalty to humanity” in its highest form! While Riel was hung for his righteous rebellion against the British Empire, his vision lives on in the hearts of those today seeking a better future for the North!
We plan over the next several months to release more in-depth pieces to elaborate on this foundation for the politics of the Canadian Republic.
Some of these key proposals will involve:
We seek to promote an agenda for all people that will bring prosperity. This Canadian Republican agenda fundamentally flips the economics of Canada on its head, orienting our economy towards everyday workers, and uplifting people in underdeveloped nations, neglected regions, and underserviced communities, to give everyone as sense of dignity and purposeful life.
We are immensely proud to release our foundation statement on Louis Riel’s Birthday! Onwards to a Northern Continentalism!
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