Foundational Canada

“Foundational Canada” is the basis of building a sovereign republic in the North of North America.

As Canadian Republicans, we do not seek to negate our national history, but to sublate the historical contradictions of British colonialism.

“Foundational Canada” comprises of the descendants of European settlers — predominantly from France and the British Isles — who became naturalized to the land over the last few centuries, and the Indigenous peoples who have lived on the land for millennia before contact with Europeans.

In the century and a half since Canada’s Confederation as a British Dominion, many more people of a variety of backgrounds have become citizens of our country; from other European nations, in Southern and Eastern Europe, and later from the Far East and Global South. As such, the scope of being Canadian has expanded to encompass additional groups, building from the foundation of what we understand as “Foundational Canada.”

As Canadian Republicans we find the term “Foundational Canadian” favorable because this reference pays homage to the founding groups of our country while laying the foundation for others to integrate into our society.

This is in contrast to the post-nationalism of Justin Trudeau, believing that we have no national past, and the narrow nationalism of those on the Far-Right who insist that only the founding stock can truly be Canadians (often still minimizing the French and erasing the Indigenous people).

In recent years, there has been an existential crisis in our country where it seems a version of the “no true Scotsman” argument has been applied to Canadian identity. Those on the “White nationalist” Far-Right insist only descendants of the original settlers can be Canadian, that Indigenous people were never meant to be part of the project, and that other “non-Whites” are incompatible with a Western society rooted in British colonialism. Inversely, those on the Anarchist Far-Left insist that descendants of the original settlers are invalid as Canadians because they are not Indigenous, and further, that the entire country is invalid due to its history rooted in British colonialism.

Also, within Indigenous spaces, there are many debates around Indigeneity, such as who has been granted “Indian Status” by the Dominion government, as well as who are considered “real” Métis; all of this is largely rooted in the British colonial classifications of the Indigenous people of Canada.

These debates around the argument of “no true Canadian” seems like a negative spiral into an infinite nothingness, picking apart Canadian identity to a bare thread where there is nothing left for people to value.

Instead of seeking to continuously negate the identities of genuine people who identify with the land — the descendants of the settlers, naturalized immigrants, and the Indigenous peoples — we should seek to unite everyone who is committed to a Continentalist vision for Canada.

Canada was always “multi-cultural,” but not in the post-modern sense with no clear direction, but on the basis of nations coming together to create a civilization where the existing sub-national and regional cultures all contribute to the shared identity of what it means to be Canadian.

Through an understanding of “Foundational Canada,” we can begin to view Canadian identity not as a zero-sum game of “purity,” but as a multi-layered country that goes beyond simply being a nation as a beautiful civilization.