Separatists, Silos, and the Battle for Canada's Future

National Observer

15-05-2025

With the federal election behind us and America's interest in annexing Canada apparently on hold for the time being, it's tempting to think the worst of the recent crisis is behind us. My fear is that the real battle has only just begun.
Alberta's increasingly noisy separatist movement, and Premier Danielle Smith's willingness to amplify and enable it, creates a clear fissure that Donald Trump could exploit. The recent election helped expose the vulnerabilities in our informational ecosystem, ones that can and will be weaponized by foreign and domestic political actors. And our social media platforms continue to isolate Canadians in their own self-imposed silos, ones where things like facts and nuance barely stand a chance.
This is precisely why our Climate Solutions Reporting Project has become more vital than ever. As these information battles intensify, climate journalism stands as a crucial counterweight to misinformation and division. We've set an ambitious goal of raising $150,000 by May 22 to expand this essential reporting, but we can't get there without your support. Your contribution, pays for journalism that cuts through these silos and builds the informed consensus we desperately need in these uncertain times.
If Mark Carney government cares as much about protecting Canada's cultural and territorial sovereignty as it claimed during the recent election campaign, it will have to do more than just protect the status quo here. It has to meaningfully reinvest in the CBC and redirect its focus towards protecting our access to reliable news and information. It needs to crack down more aggressively on foreign-funded influence campaigns and the useful idiots who advance and amplify them domestically. And it should probably re-assess the value of its Online News Act, one that has only served to damage the access many Canadians have to news.
But there are also things you can do to protect Canada from these malign and malicious forces.
And yes, one of them is subscribing to Canada's National Observer. Like most online publications, we increasingly depend on subscribers to fund our journalism and share our work. And while other outlets might lean on techniques like rage-farming to drive their engagement and support, CNO is fact-based reporting.
By supporting independent journalism you're helping expand an ecosystem where the facts are checked, the details matter, and the noisiest voices (present company excluded, perhaps) don't get all of the oxygen. With each subscription you're helping build a place where we can talk about the country we want to build and share, and creating cultural momentum that becomes more irrepressible with each additional voice.