Still from the “We Are Canadian” video, featuring Nova Scotia’s Jeff Douglas. Image from YouTube.

In response to the re-election of Donald Trump, the United States’ on-again, off-again tariff war with Canada, and America’s slide into authoritarianism, many Canadians are adopting an “elbows up” attitude. From boycotting US products to booing the American national anthem at hockey games, people are being encouraged to brace for the future defensively, with their arms raised high.

While there is good reason to push back against American expansionism and to reject Trump’s dream of annexing Canada as the 51st state, this “elbows up” nationalism risks reviving a shallow nostalgia that hides Canada’s own history of colonialism. Unless this is challenged, Canada cannot claim to be serious about improving relations with Indigenous peoples or building a stronger, more just future.

A striking example of this attitude is the new “We Are Canadian” video, a remake of the “I Am Canadian” beer commercial from 25 years ago. Meant to rally Canadians, it actually glosses over the country’s record of colonial aggression—the same kind of antagonism it claims to resist. The video briefly invokes the so-called “Oka Crisis,” more accurately remembered as Canada’s violent siege of the Mohawk communities of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in the summer of 1990. That moment is used as a quick nod to Canada’s flaws, especially its treatment of Indigenous peoples, but in doing so it trivializes what happened.

This past summer marked the

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