"Don't Believe Them"
How Not to Fall for Smoke Screens
On Friday, February 21, Stephen Harper published an open letter in La Presse, one of the main francophone newspapers in Quebec, calling on Canadians to “seize the opportunity” to make the country stronger—through fossil fuels, economic tightening, and a return to so-called pragmatism.
Wrapped in calls for strength and pragmatism, his letter was just a rebranding of austerity, nationalism, and fossil-fuel obsession.
This is my response.
Every morning, I wake up to a relentless stream of news from both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. As a Quebec native and American citizen for the past eight years, living just minutes from Washington, D.C., my worldview is shaped by the tension between these two cultural and political realities.
To say the past few weeks under Trumpism have been grueling is an understatement. The proposed elimination of the Department of Education, the push for “patriotic education,” attacks on women’s and trans rights, cuts to inclusion programs, and mass layoffs in the federal administration—spearheaded by Elon Musk under the guise of purging “corrupt” and “wasteful” employees—paint a dire picture.
And then, of course, there are the tariffs and the suggestion of annexing Canada, triggering a wave of outrage.
Last Friday, it was Stephen Harper, writing in La Presse, urging us not to “give in to our worst instincts” and to “seize the opportunity to make Canada a proud and serious country again—through fossil fuels, of course.”
If political opportunism were an art, this would be a masterpiece.
A strategist and economist at heart, Harper uses this moment not to engage in a real discussion about Canada’s energy independence or economic sovereignty, but to redirect public emotion toward his own agenda. Instead of questioning the country’s reliance on U.S. trade policy, he exploits the fear and instability created by Trump to push an energy policy that, under different circumstances, would face far more scrutiny.
What’s striking is how Canada, much like Quebec, prides itself on protecting its citizens while simultaneously embracing a distinctly American posture.
Despite the soaring cost of living, governments continue to cut social services, environmental protections, education, and healthcare. Most recently, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) saw its funding slashed, provoking an uproar in the province’s cultural and artistic circles.
Make no mistake: these cuts and underfunding efforts, though less dramatic than those in the U.S., are just as ideological.
Everywhere, conservative policies are being justified through rhetoric rooted in fear and withdrawal, all while advocating austerity that weakens public services. This strategy, recycled and globally connected, thrives on economic instability, cultural divisions, and the systematic erosion of trust in institutions.
Recognizing this pattern is the first step in resisting it.
But how do we do that when each day brings another wave of bleak headlines—and when even the price of eggs feels like an existential crisis?
In a New York Times article titled Don’t Believe Him, Ezra Klein explains that Trump’s power doesn’t stem from the truth of his statements, but from their sheer force and relentless repetition. His strategy, echoing Steve Bannon’s muzzle velocity approach, is to flood the public with rapid, chaotic changes, creating the illusion that reality bends entirely to his will.
The key takeaway? While Trump wants people to believe they are powerless against his actions, institutions, laws, and collective resistance still hold power—so long as we refuse to buy into his narrative of absolute control.
And that’s exactly what I want to say to my fellow Quebecers and Canadians:
Don’t believe them.
Don’t believe them when they say the solution to Trump’s tariffs is a return to fossil fuels and right-wing nationalism.
Don’t believe them when they claim that slashing funding for culture and education is a budgetary necessity—when, in reality, it’s an ideological attack on critical thinking and artistic expression.
Don’t believe them when they justify austerity in healthcare and social services under the guise of efficiency—while steadily privatizing care and deepening inequality.
Don’t believe them when they claim to defend the French language while dismantling the very institutions that protect it, cutting funding for francophone universities, and attacking cultural diversity.
Don’t believe them when they say immigration threatens Quebec or Canadian identity—when, in reality, they exploit this fear to divert attention from real economic and social crises.
The message is the same everywhere: what happens in the U.S. may seem more extreme, but it is happening in Canada, too.
Resistance begins by rejecting fear-based narratives and recognizing them for what they are: smoke screens designed to paralyze us.
To resist is not to drown in their discourse but to remain clear-eyed. It is to name and call out their tactics for what they are. It is to defend our institutions, fight for spaces of critical thought, reject austerity as the only option, and—above all—organize collectively.
If you had told me when I first moved to the U.S. that I would one day write a political call to action, I wouldn’t have believed it. But their strategy depends on our sense of powerlessness.
Refusing to accept that vision is already an act of resistance.
We are living through a right-wing resurgence that eerily echoes the early days of every authoritarian and fascist regime. This is not alarmist rhetoric. It is already happening.
And while history reminds us that every era of repression has been followed by renewal—driven by those who refused to accept the inevitable—it also reminds us that they never did it alone.
It is together that we reclaim a vision of politics rooted in justice, in cooperation rather than exploitation and domination.
It is together that we refuse resignation.
Across borders, bridging divides—this time, of the heart.
"If political opportunism were an art, this would be a masterpiece." Woof. This was such a great read.