https://x.com/BarryESharp/status/1907757017508491642Did Trudeau and the Liberals Set the Stage for a Modern-Day Cultural Genocide? The Evidence Suggests They Did In 2015, Justin Trudeau, newly minted as Canada’s Prime Minister, sat down with *The New York Times Magazine* and declared Canada “the first post-national state,” a nation with “no core identity, no mainstream.” Instead, he said, Canada’s identity would be defined by shared values—“openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice.” It was a lofty vision, one that rejected the idea of a singular cultural foundation in favor of a pluralistic, multicultural future. But beneath the rhetoric of inclusion lies a darker reality: Trudeau’s policies, particularly his government’s embrace of mass migration, may have set the stage for a modern-day cultural genocide, eroding the distinct identities of both Canada’s historical settler cultures and its Indigenous peoples. The evidence is compelling—and deeply troubling.
Trudeau’s statement, published on December 8, 2015, was not a formal policy announcement but a philosophical framing of Canada’s future. Yet it quickly became a mission statement for the Liberal Party’s agenda. Within months, Trudeau’s government began implementing policies that aligned with this post-national vision, most notably through a dramatic increase in immigration. By 2016, Canada had welcomed over 40,000 Syrian refugees, fulfilling a campaign promise to resettle 25,000 by early that year. Immigration targets continued to rise, reaching 341,180 permanent residents in 2019 and peaking at 465,000 in 2022, with plans to hit 500,000 by 2025, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data. Many of these newcomers hailed from non-Western countries—India, China, the Philippines, and various African and Middle Eastern nations—reflecting a deliberate push for diversity.
The Liberals framed this as both a humanitarian and economic imperative, addressing global crises and an aging population. But critics argue it was also a calculated move to “reshape Canada’s demographic fabric,” as one analysis puts it. Between 2015 and 2025, the proportion of “Old Stock Canadians”—descendants of British and French settlers—dropped by 5 percentage points, a significant cultural shift in just a decade. For these historical communities, it feels like watching their heritage dismantled brick by brick: holidays like Victoria Day softened, English common law traditions questioned, and their historical narrative reframed as oppressive. The Toronto Sun lambasted Trudeau’s post-national rhetoric, accusing him of being “embarrassed, even ashamed of our Western culture and values.” But the impact extends far beyond settler cultures—to the very Indigenous peoples Trudeau has claimed to champion.
To understand the gravity of this shift, we must first define cultural genocide. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, in its 2015 report on the residential school system, described cultural genocide as a deliberate, systemic policy to “eradicate the culture and languages of the country’s Indigenous populations” through forced assimilation. The residential schools, established by European settlers and run by churches, separated Indigenous children from their families, and banned their languages. The TRC estimates that at least 3,200 children died, mainly due to systemic diseases of the era, with many buried in graves situated on school grounds.
Cultural genocide, then, involves intent and systemic impact: a policy that deliberately erodes or destroys a distinct cultural identity, whether through direct means (like residential schools) or indirect means (like demographic shifts). The historical precedent is clear: European mass migration, starting in the 11th century, led to the dominance of settler cultures and the marginalization of Indigenous peoples. By the 19th century, institutions like residential schools were established to “standardize operations across the country,” as one observer notes, aiming to “take the Indian out of the child,” in the words of Sir John A. Macdonald. The result was a devastating loss of Indigenous languages, traditions, and identities—a textbook case of cultural genocide.
Fast forward to Trudeau’s Canada, and the parallels are striking. While the Liberals’ policies are framed as inclusive, their impact mirrors the historical erosion of distinct cultures through demographic dominance. The scale of immigration—500,000 newcomers annually at its peak—has led to a rapid diversification of Canada’s cultural landscape, with top source countries in 2022 including India (118,095), China (31,815), and the Philippines (22,070), per IRCC data. This demographic shift, combined with Trudeau’s post-national vision, has diluted the prominence of “Old Stock Canadians,” as critics argue, but it also poses a profound threat to Indigenous peoples, who are already marginalized by centuries of colonial policies.
The 2021 census reports 1.8 million people with Indigenous ancestry, with 801,045 living in urban centers, where they face cultural isolation and pressure to assimilate into a multicultural, urban identity. The Report of the National Round Table on Aboriginal Urban Issues (1993) identifies key challenges: education, health, housing, and cultural disconnection. Mass migration exacerbates these pressures by further diversifying the cultural landscape, potentially overshadowing Indigenous voices in a multicultural narrative. As new cultural groups grow, resources for cultural preservation are spread thin, often prioritizing newcomer integration over Indigenous revitalization.
Unlike Quebec, which has legal mechanisms to protect its culture—such as Bill 101, mandating French dominance, and control over economic immigrants—Indigenous peoples lack similar federal safeguards. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 promotes diversity but offers no enforceable protections for distinct cultures, leaving Indigenous communities vulnerable to erosion. Trudeau’s government has taken steps to address Indigenous issues, such as the 2019 Indigenous Languages Act, but these efforts are often criticized as insufficient. The post-national vision, by rejecting a “core identity,” fails to prioritize Indigenous cultural preservation, creating a vacuum where demographic pressures can take hold.
The Liberals’ approach is marked by a glaring hypocrisy: while they champion a post-national state, they shield Quebec’s cultural fortress from its full implications. Quebec, with its language laws, secularism bill (Bill 21), and preference for French-speaking newcomers, operates as a “distinct society” within Canada, insulated from the demographic changes the rest of the country faces. The Liberals have refused to challenge these policies federally, a pragmatic trade-off to secure Quebec’s electoral support. In return, Quebec delivers the seats Trudeau needs to stay in power—a Faustian bargain that ensures its cultural autonomy while the rest of Canada is told to embrace a borderless, identity-fluid future.
This double standard is stark. The Liberals decry the “jingoism” of other provinces—think Alberta’s oil pride or Ontario’s British roots—but stay silent on Quebec’s insular policies. They lecture English Canada about the sins of colonialism, yet accommodate Quebec’s own brand of cultural supremacy. For Indigenous peoples, this selective protectionism is a bitter irony: the same party that condemns historical colonialism facilitates a “soft colonialism” through mass migration, where existing cultures recede as others rise—except in Quebec, where the rules don’t apply.
The evidence suggests that Trudeau and the Liberals have indeed set the stage for a modern-day cultural genocide. For “Old Stock Canadians,” the deliberate policy of mass migration, framed by Trudeau’s post-national vision, has led to a 5-percentage-point decline in their demographic prominence, a shift that feels like a dismantling of their heritage. For Indigenous peoples, the impact is even more profound. Already weakened by historical colonization, they face additional pressure from a multicultural landscape that overshadows their visibility and fails to provide the protections they need to survive.
The parallel to historical European migration is undeniable. Just as European settlers established dominance through demographic shifts and institutions like residential schools, Trudeau’s policies create a new demographic reality that marginalizes existing cultures through a lack of protective mechanisms. The intent may differ—European migration was explicitly colonial, while Trudeau’s policies are framed as inclusive—but the outcome is the same: the erosion of distinct cultural identities, with Indigenous peoples particularly vulnerable. As one analysis warns, “what is left of the Indigenous peoples and their foothold will inevitably disappear” without stronger safeguards, a prediction that echoes the TRC’s findings on the residential school era.
Canada stands at a crossroads. The Liberals’ post-national experiment risks swallowing the very diversity it claims to celebrate, eroding the distinct identities that make the country unique. If culture doesn’t matter, why defend it at all? And if it does, why protect some cultures while allowing others to fade? These questions demand answers, not platitudes.
To prevent a modern-day cultural genocide, Canada must enact laws to identify and protect each distinct culture, as the earlier analysis suggests. This could mean:
- Recognizing cultural groups—Indigenous, settler, and immigrant—in a legal framework.
- Granting regions control over immigration to preserve demographic balance, as Quebec does.
- Enacting language and cultural laws to safeguard traditions, such as Indigenous language revitalization programs.
- Ensuring that holidays, legal traditions, and historical narratives are preserved, not reframed or softened.
For Indigenous peoples, this is a matter of survival. Their resilience—evident in movements like the TRC, language revitalization, and land back initiatives—offers little more than hope and it cannot and will not withstand unchecked demographic pressures without support. The Liberals must prioritize Indigenous cultural preservation, not as a token gesture, but as a fundamental commitment to justice.
Trudeau’s vision of a post-national Canada may have been born of idealism, but its consequences are far from utopian. The evidence is clear: by opening the borders to mass migration without protecting the cultures that define Canada, the Liberals have set the stage for a cultural genocide that threatens to erase the very identities they claim to value. The clock is ticking, and the stakes could not be higher. Canada’s cultural mosaic—Indigenous, settler, and newcomer alike—deserves better than to be sacrificed on the altar of a post-national dream.
