The Discourse on Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons was once known as first job destination for many Canadian teenagers looking to get their start working for a wage.

However, the corporation has shifted more recently to hiring Indian international students to fill its staff. This has led to a somewhat public discussion around the economy, demographic change, and national identity.

Yet all of this is about… a fast food franchise. Perhaps the limited scope of this discourse really does say something about our national identity.

To answer the above question, the very simple reason for this phenomena is that immigrant workers can be undercut at a wage below that of any citizens. Hence, these profit-driven corporations will pursue this path when available to cut costs at the expense of all involved in the process seeking wages.

Economics 101 aside, the Tim Hortons discourse highlights how inhibited our thinking is around the potential of Canada as a country.

What is important to understand about Canada’s position as a Dominion of the British Empire and a vassal sate of the American Empire is that the country’s geopolitics have always been “Canada Second.”

The British Empire’s foreign policy is based on Mercantile Law and the principles Atlanticism seeking to control the seaways all while neglecting the land administered under its colonial rule. This was the prevailing worldview of the political “leadership” going back to Confederation in 1867, such as the first Prime Minister John A. MacDonald who was a “Canada Second” politician, and little more than a bureaucrat of the British Empire.

Historically, the British Dominion of Canada has been a conglomeration of British corporations (and later American corporations) setting up shop on these lands and doing the absolute minimum to actually develop Canada. All of this history of “Canada Second” has contributed to the small-minded thinking we are seeing around Tim Horton’s now being regarded as the pinnacle of “Canadian nationalism.”

As Canadian Republicans, we should strive to expand our horizons beyond the limited scope of this discourse around a fast food franchise. Instead of us settling to have our youth work at a dreary establishment like Tim Hortons, we should be mobilizing the population with our youth participating in great public works projects to build up the country’s infrastructure and take these lands to greater heights never before seen in Canada.

With an independent republic to assert our popular sovereignty and craft our own foreign policy we have the potential become a genuine middle power in the emerging multipolar world. Instead, we are resigned to some donuts and mediocre coffee to keep us warm in the cold.