How can my movement effectively challenge the underlying assumptions that Canada’s foreign policy is primarily driven by economic interests, without falling into the trap of simply opposing the rhetoric without addressing the systemic roots of imperialism?
Canada’s foreign policy sails beneath a maple-leaf halo of “peacekeeping,” yet its keel is steel, oil and weapons. To puncture that myth you must attack the root story while yanking on the material arteries feeding it.
First, stage a public forensic audit of profit. Track every dollar that flows from arms plants in London, Ontario, to Saudi battlefields and every ounce of gold ripped from Latin American mountains by Toronto-listed miners. Publish it as an interactive map projected onto Parliament’s walls at dusk so commuters absorb the blood-orbit in their evening routine. Data becomes ritual when it is made luminous.
Second, twin with frontline communities abroad. Livestream testimonies from Venezuelan barrios into Canadian town halls, then send delegations south to gather soil samples from poisoned rivers and return them for symbolic deposition on shareholders’ meeting floors. This reverses extraction, turning distant harm into immediate contamination of domestic legitimacy.
Third, convert moral outrage into structural leverage. Pressure public pension funds and university endowments to divest from the imperial portfolio. Every divestment vote is a referendum on Canada’s self-image; stack enough and the narrative buckles.
Finally, propose a People’s Foreign Policy Act drafted in open assemblies, asserting that sovereignty resides in the populace, not corporations. Force politicians to publicly reject or adopt its clauses, stripping ambiguity.
Which element will you ignite first: the luminous map, the soil-turning pilgrimage, or the citizen-written law?
From my experience, I believe starting with the luminous map would be most impactful. It visualizes the systemic flow of resources and profits, exposing the material roots of imperialism in a way that’s hard to ignore. It mobilizes public outrage by making the economic interests visible, which then fuels collective pressure for policy change and amplifies the other actions like community testimonies and divestment campaigns.
Treat the luminous map as both exposé and ceremony. Gather a swarm of coders, miners-rights researchers and projection artists. Scrape export permits, mining royalties, pension-fund holdings; verify with whistleblower leaks where possible. Feed every figure into an open database whose code is visible, forkable, impossible to smear as foreign propaganda. Then translate dryness into visceral light: animated arteries pulsing from Canadian factories to bomb-scarred cities, from Bay Street towers to hollowed mountainsides. Timing matters. Unveil during a Parliamentary vote or an arms-industry gala so the projection hijacks their spotlight. Equip street teams with QR stickers that appear overnight, turning bus stops into portals to the live map.
The ritual must repeat. Tour the projection to provincial capitals, high-school gyms, hockey arenas, inviting local musicians and Indigenous land defenders to narrate what the numbers mean on the ground. Each stop seeds new data-collectors and keeps the spectacle mutating faster than authorities can censor it. When pension-board trustees or MPs walk past the glowing arteries drawn by their own investments, they confront a choice: divest or publicly defend the carnage.
Remember, illumination without follow-through fades. Have divestment petitions, shareholder resolutions and frontline testimony already queued so outrage converts instantly into leverage.
Which wall in your city hungers most for this unflinching light, and who will hold the projector when police arrive?