Newly-elected Conservative Party of Canada leader, Erin O’Toole, turned heads in July when he announced his controversial campaign slogan “Take Back Canada.”
When met with backlash regarding the phrase’s questionable meaning, O’Toole defended the slogan, saying that it derived from his intentions to take Canada back from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s incumbent Liberals.
While O’Toole may believe the intention of his campaign’s slogan is genuine, he fails to recognize the deeper meaning behind the phrase “Take Back Canada”—one that is rooted in colonialism and the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Not only does O’Toole’s slogan bear uncomfortable similarities to the message behind U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again”—a phrase now used by far-right groups to promote racism and inequality—it implies O’Toole sees himself and people like him as Canada’s rightful owner.
“Take Back Canada” suggests Canada was stolen from O’Toole and the Conservative party—one characterized by a predominately white membership. In reality, it is widely accepted that Canada never belonged to people like O’Toole, but was violently taken from the land’s Indigenous peoples beginning in the 16th century.
Canada has an extensive history of mistreatment of Indigenous people, including land settlement disagreements, the cultural genocide of residential schools, and the thousands of unsolved missing and murder Indigenous women cases. O’Toole’s Conservative Party has done little to reconcile these issues, instead maintaining a history of anti-Indigenous rhetoric.
Political leaders should be looking ahead—working towards Indigenous reconciliation—rather than reminiscing about a past that has been nothing but cruel to marginalized Canadians.
If elected in 2023, O’Toole will join a growing list of white prime ministers who hold office on unceded Algonquin territory at Parliament Hill. Never did he nor his ancestors own the Canada he plans to ‘take back,’ and his slogan does nothing but highlight his party’s ignorance regarding the country’s shameful treatment of Indigenous peoples.
Featured graphic from file.
