Underpinning the response of the American plutocracy is a sophisticated strategy that enlists the support of compliant Canadians; this incudes American dark-money networks funding Canadian think tanks, U.S.-owned industries backing Canadian lobby campaigns, and an American hedge fund owning a major chain of Canadian newspapers.

Consider that the Atlas Network, the well-documented group of billionaire ideologues pursuing a libertarian agenda while evading transparency, partners with 11 Canadian think tanks — some of them charities — including the Canadian Constitution Foundation, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Fraser Institute, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, the Montreal Economic Institute and SecondStreet.org to promote discredited views on vaccines, climate change, labour rights, medicare, public education, Indigenous rights and fair taxation.

Another American dark-money group, the fossil-fuel-industry-funded Heartland Institute, one of the key organizations behind the democracy-threatening Project 2025 in the United States, has deep connections with Canadian policy organizations the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Energy Probe, Canadians for Sensible Climate Policy and Friends of Science — all groups spreading disinformation about the threat of climate change and how we can confront it, among other egregious initiatives.

Wealthy American right-wingnuts have already been making inroads in Canada, so we’d better be ready for more of the same.

Maybe it’s time to start a BBQ co-op. 🤔