Category: Politics

  • Independence Fantasies, Colonial Truths

    Independence Fantasies, Colonial Truths

    Alberta wants to leave. Again. And this time, it’s louder than usual.

    Calls for Western separatism—what some are now trying to brand as a serious referendum campaign—are gaining traction. Politicians are testing the waters. The Premier hasn’t ruled it out. And, predictably, they’re invoking Quebec’s sovereignty movements as a model.

    But let me be clear from the outset: I’m not defending Canada. I’m not clinging to the federation. I don’t believe states are worth saving—not this one, not any of them. I’m not interested in sovereignty narratives that just redraw the same borders with different colours. I’m an abolitionist. And as a Black queer person raised in Quebec, I know firsthand how nation-building is so often just empire with better PR.

    That’s exactly why Alberta’s separatist posturing doesn’t read as radical to me. It reads as settler revanchism—masked in the language of resistance.

    Yes, Quebec’s independence movements have been violent, colonial, anti-Black, and shot through with contradictions. But they emerged from something real: a distinct cultural, linguistic, and historical formation shaped by centuries of attempted assimilation. That doesn’t absolve them. But it contextualizes them.

    Alberta has no such context.

    There’s no endangered language. No collective memory of being colonized by the Canadian state. No suppressed literature or forbidden faith. What there is, is capital. Oil. Guns. White grievance. And an economy built on extraction and entitlement.

    What Alberta wants to separate from isn’t oppression—it’s accountability.

    This isn’t a fight for freedom. It’s a tantrum from a province that’s never been told no. A province that has long enjoyed disproportionate political power, federal subsidies, and a privileged place in the settler imagination. And now, as the climate crisis accelerates and global scrutiny mounts, Alberta doesn’t want to change. It wants to opt out.

    It’s not seeking liberation. It’s demanding exemption.

    And when Alberta reaches for Quebec as its excuse—as its supposed precedent—it exposes something deeper. It shows how shallow this separatism really is. Because for all of Quebec’s failings, there is a cultural infrastructure here: a language, a kinship system, a literature of struggle (even if that struggle has too often excluded Black and Indigenous people). Alberta has none of that. Just the myth of rugged individualism and the fantasy of permanent control.

    This is not decolonization. This is a colony refusing to share.

    Alberta separatism borrows the postures of liberation movements to double down on domination. It mimics the rhetoric of resistance while clinging to the very systems that are killing us. And that’s what makes it so dangerous: it masquerades as anti-state politics while defending everything the state was built to protect—white wealth, settler power, and the right to extract without consequence.

    As someone who has lived through Quebec’s nationalism and survived the Canadian state’s violences, I don’t mistake any of this for freedom. I’ve seen what nationhood does to those of us who don’t fit its image. I’ve watched how state-building chews up the very people it claims to uplift. I’ve learned that not all exits lead somewhere better.

    Abolition isn’t about preserving Canada. But it’s not about celebrating every departure from it, either. Especially not the ones led by those who already have everything and just want more.

    So no—I won’t romanticize Alberta’s separatist dreams. I won’t let them smuggle white supremacy into the conversation under the banner of autonomy. I won’t let them use Quebec as cover while erasing the very people Quebec has tried to silence.

    Alberta isn’t trying to escape oppression. It’s trying to protect it.

    And some of us are done pretending not to notice.

  • After the Election: No Victory, No Salvation, Only the Work Ahead

    After the Election: No Victory, No Salvation, Only the Work Ahead

    Yesterday’s election unfolded the way it always does in a decaying settler state: desperate, fragmented, unmoored from any real possibility of change.
    Mark Carney won a minority government.
    Not because he inspired anyone.
    Not because he offered a vision of something better.
    But because fear of collapse keeps people clinging to the wreckage.
    Carney’s victory is a victory for capital, for managed decline. He will govern not with transformation, but with technocratic violence, offering competence while administering crisis. He represents an empire trying to manage its own decay without ever questioning the structures that brought it to this point.

    The NDP, meanwhile, collapsed into near-irrelevance.
    Not by accident.
    They spent years softening their demands, trimming the edges off movements that once demanded real justice, chasing approval from the very systems that were built to contain and destroy them.
    By the time they realized who they had abandoned, it was too late.
    The base that built the NDP—racialized, working-class, Indigenous, disabled, queer communities—has already moved on.
    Many of us have stopped looking to electoral politics for salvation.
    We learned long ago that there is no ballot box for liberation.

    And then there’s Poilievre.
    His personal defeat is not a victory.
    He lost his seat but grew the Conservative base.
    He played with the fire of white rage, conspiracy, and open fascism, and those flames are not going out.
    They will find new leaders, more dangerous ones.
    The centre did not hold. It barely even tried.
    What we are seeing is not a reversal of right-wing momentum. It is its acceleration, even in the absence of the man who helped bring it to this point.

    Taken together, tonight’s results confirm what many of us already knew.
    Canada, as a project, is dying.
    Not with a rupture that could birth something new, but through a long, grinding erosion that tightens its violence while pretending to offer stability.
    There is no vision here. No future being built.
    Only a managed decline, administered by people too invested in the structures of extraction, policing, and dispossession to imagine anything different.

    For Black, Indigenous, racialized, queer, and trans communities, this election does not change the terrain.
    The state was never our protector.
    It was never ours to reclaim.
    There was never a version of this country where we were meant to survive with dignity.
    That’s not pessimism. It’s clarity.

    The task ahead is the same as it has always been.
    To build outside of the crumbling systems.
    To invest in abolitionist infrastructures: mutual aid, communal care, survival networks that are not dependent on the permission of the state.
    To protect each other when the safety nets fail, because they were never designed to catch us in the first place.
    To refuse despair, not because we are hopeful about the system, but because we are committed to each other beyond it.

    Carney’s victory is hollow.
    Poilievre’s downfall is dangerous in disguise.
    The NDP’s disappearance is a cautionary tale about what happens when you sell your soul for electoral respectability.

    But our survival has never depended on who wins elections.
    It has always depended on how fiercely we remember who we are to each other.
    How fiercely we build in the cracks they cannot seal.
    How boldly we refuse to accept the limits they place on what we can imagine.

    No ballot was going to save us last night.
    No parliament will save us today.
    Our future will not be built in the halls of power.
    It will be built in kitchens, basements, parks, community centres.
    It will be built in memory, in movement, in revolt, in care.

    No victory.
    No salvation.
    Only us.
    Only everything we still have to build, together.

  • A Gesture of Hate

    A Gesture of Hate

    In the aftermath of Elon Musk’s unmistakable Nazi salutes at Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2025, much of the media coverage has predictably veered toward obfuscation, excuse-making, and, most disturbingly, a kind of ableist scapegoating. Instead of calling out the gesture for what it is—an unambiguous alignment with fascist symbolism—mainstream narratives have gone to great lengths to soften its implications. Some have even resorted to blaming Musk’s autism or Asperger’s diagnosis, a form of saneism that shifts focus from fascism to neurodivergence. This is a dangerous, disingenuous, and ableist deflection, and as a mental health professional, I’m here to say: stop blaming autism for white supremacy. 

    Saneism in the Defense of Fascism

    Saneism—the systemic discrimination against people deemed “mentally unfit”—has long been a tool of oppression, wielded to delegitimize, discredit, and silence. In this case, it’s being weaponized to absolve Musk of accountability. Media outlets and commentators alike have leaned into the narrative that Musk’s alleged neurodivergence might explain his behavior, as though autism or Asperger’s somehow predisposes someone to fascist gestures. 

    This is not only an absurd and unscientific claim but a profoundly harmful one. It reinforces the stigma that neurodivergent people are socially inept, dangerous, or incapable of understanding the implications of their actions. It erases the agency of neurodivergent people while simultaneously absolving powerful individuals of their complicity in oppressive systems. 

    Let’s be clear: Autism is not a precursor to fascism. Fascism is learned. It is deliberate. It is a choice made by people in positions of power who understand exactly what they are doing. To conflate neurodivergence with hate is to perpetuate ableism on a massive scale, distracting from the real issue: the normalization of fascist ideology in our society. 

    The Media’s Role in Normalizing Hate

    The media’s handling of Musk’s gesture reflects a broader pattern of reluctance to call out fascism for what it is, especially when it comes dressed in wealth, influence, and tech-world allure. Instead of interrogating the deeper implications of Musk’s actions, outlets have chosen to debate his intentions, contextualize the moment as a misunderstanding, or—most egregiously—blame his neurodivergence. 

    This avoidance is more than cowardice; it’s complicity. By deflecting attention from the explicitly fascist nature of the gesture, the media allows it to be rebranded as harmless, ironic, or accidental. This creates fertile ground for fascism to grow, unchecked and unchallenged, under the guise of plausibly deniable “jokes” or misunderstandings. And by dragging autism into the narrative, it compounds the harm, further marginalizing neurodivergent communities in the process. 

    Why This Matters: The Path from Symbols to Systems

    As a mental health professional, I work with clients who are intimately familiar with the toll of ableism, racism, and systemic oppression. Many of them are neurodivergent, many of them are Black, and all of them live under the weight of a society that demands they justify their existence while figures like Musk are given free passes to perpetuate harm. This moment is a microcosm of how hate operates—not in overt, glaring announcements, but in subtle, insidious gestures that the powerful dismiss while marginalized communities suffer the consequences.  

    Symbols matter. They carry weight. When someone as visible as Musk performs a Nazi salute, whether ironically or not, it signals alignment with systems of white supremacy. The fact that this act is being minimized or dismissed outright is not an accident; it is part of the slow normalization of fascism in mainstream culture. And by blaming autism, the media doubles down on the harm, turning attention away from systemic hate and toward an already marginalized group. 

    A Call to Action

    We cannot let this slide. We cannot let Musk or his defenders hide behind ambiguity, ableism, or irony. We must call this out for what it is: a deliberate act of fascist signaling, made more dangerous by the media’s refusal to engage with its implications. 

    If we allow saneism and ableism to dictate this narrative, we betray not only neurodivergent communities but all those targeted by the systems of hate Musk’s gesture reinforces. As someone who works every day to support mental health and challenge oppression, I know how deeply these narratives harm. And I refuse to let them go unchallenged. 

    To the media: Stop blaming autism for fascism. To the public: Hold Musk accountable. To all of us: Resist the normalization of hate, in every form it takes. This is not a misunderstanding. It is a wake-up call. And we cannot afford to hit snooze. 

  • Urgent Call for Dalhousie to Divest from Companies Complicit in Israeli Occupation

    Urgent Call for Dalhousie to Divest from Companies Complicit in Israeli Occupation

    Dear Members of the Dalhousie University Board of Governors,

    As a current doctoral student at Dalhousie University, I feel compelled to speak out on an issue that goes to the very heart of our shared values as an academic institution. The university’s investments in companies complicit in the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine contradict its commitments to equity, justice, and human dignity. This is not just a financial matter—it is a moral crisis. Dalhousie’s continued financial ties to these companies make it complicit in ongoing violence that the United Nations has clearly identified as having genocidal intent.

    The recent report  by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese provides chilling details about the systematic destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza. The report describes the forced displacement, mass killings, and deliberate targeting of civilians as actions that amount to genocide. This is not a distant issue; it is one that our university directly engages with through its investments in companies that profit from illegal settlements, home demolitions, and militarized violence. These financial choices have real, devastating consequences for millions of Palestinians.

    Dalhousie’s history shows us what happens when institutions prioritize profit over people. The Lord Dalhousie Panel Report laid bare the university’s deep entanglements with anti-Black racism, slavery, and colonial exploitation. While efforts have been made to address that legacy, the university’s investments in companies enabling the destruction of Palestine perpetuate the same systems of violence. These decisions undermine everything Dalhousie claims to stand for.

    As a student at this university, I had felt proud to be part of a community that values equity and reconciliation. But those values must be reflected in our actions, and over the three years I have spent at Dal to date, what I have seen is a lot of lip service to equity and social justice without doing the very difficult work needed to actively undermine the legitimacy of the systems that reinforce oppression. Let me be clear: investing in companies complicit in genocide is antithetical to everything our community profess to believe. We cannot look away while lives are being destroyed, communities erased, and an entire people subjected to state-organized oppression. Neutrality in the face of such violence is complicity.

    My work as a scholar focuses on how systemic violence fractures communities, identities, and lives. I know deeply how interconnected these struggles are. The settler-colonial violence Palestinians and Lebanese populations face today is not unlike the legacies of anti-Blackness and Indigenous dispossession that continue to shape Canada and Nova Scotia. These systems of oppression are linked, and our response to one reflects our commitments to all.

    Dalhousie has an opportunity to lead—not with words, but with action. Divestment is not a radical demand; it is a necessary step toward aligning the university’s financial practices with its values. By divesting, Dalhousie can affirm its commitment to justice and human dignity, standing in solidarity with those resisting systemic violence. This is not just about Palestine—it is about Dalhousie’s role in shaping a more just world.

    I urge you to act now. Divest from all companies complicit in the illegal Israeli occupation. To delay is to allow our resources to continue funding violence and destruction. The choice before you is clear: to perpetuate harm or to stand on the side of justice.

    This is a defining moment for our university. Let Dalhousie be remembered as an institution that chose accountability and courage in the face of genocide. Let it be a leader in the fight for equity, dignity, and human rights.

    In solidarity,

    Vincent Mousseau, MSc RSW
    PhD Student
    Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University