This op-ed originally appeared in the Hamilton Spectator on April 22, 2025. 

In the shadow of Donald Trump’s unrelenting attacks on our jobs, our economy and our way of life, a lot of folks are wearing their Canadian pride like never before.

If you ask most people what makes them proud to be Canadian — once you get past the corny beer ads and our hockey team beating the Americans at the Four Nations tournament in February — they will probably tell you it’s the fact we look out for one another. Whether it’s helping our neighbour change a flat tire or ensuring everyone has access to health care, in Canada, when people need help, we help.

Our public services and our social safety net are not perfect, but they define us and make us proud to be Canadian. As important as it is to “buy Canadian,” we have to remember that Canadian billionaires aren’t going to save us in this trade war either — grocery store CEOs are going to be happy to price-gouge us on maple syrup while wearing a maple leaf hat.

Standing on guard for Canada means defending what truly and fundamentally makes us Canadian: the things like universal, public health care that lift us up when we fall on hard times.

Who will stand up to Trump has become the ballot question in our ongoing federal election. We know it won’t be Pierre Poilievre, who shares Trump’s desire to obliterate public services and the social safety net. Pierre will never stand up to Trump, because Pierre’s friends and supporters probably love Trump more than they like Pierre.

Can Mark Carney be counted on to defend what Canadians value — and the things that Trump’s trade war threatens — the most? As chair of Brookfield, Carney recently oversaw the acquisition of Australia’s second-largest hospital network that resulted in six million people losing health insurance coverage, and the introduction of $100 fees for an overnight hospital stay. Meanwhile, with Carney at the helm, Brookfield was accused of violating the rights of Indigenous people and running roughshod over environmental concerns in Colombia, Brazil, the United States — and Canada.

If Carney is willing to run American-style health care in Australia, and violate Indigenous rights and trample environmental concerns around the world, should we trust him alone to safeguard those same things here in Canada?

Opinion polling indicates smaller parties are getting squeezed out of the picture, but if past is prologue, the Liberals alone cannot be trusted.

Just look at the last time the Liberals emerged with an inflated majority and a diminished opposition from the left after the 1993 election. Canada is still recovering from the damage the Chretien-Martin austerity budgets of the mid-1990s inflicted on the social safety net. They kneecapped transfers for health care and, not surprisingly, the number of beds per 1,000 inhabitants has steadily fallen since.

The federal government stopped funding public housing altogether — and the impacts of removing those 20,000 new units of affordable or social housing from the market every year are direly obvious today.

By contrast, so much of what makes us proudest to be Canadian is thanks to the NDP — with the help of organized labour and civil society.

If you’ve ever taken parental leave to look after your newborn; if your family can access quality affordable child care for your kids; if your parents or grandparents have been kept out of poverty by the CPP and OAS; if you’ve ever had major surgery or needed critical care and didn’t have to mortgage your home to pay for it; and if you’re one of millions of Canadians who can now see a dentist or access vital diabetes medication or contraceptives free of charge under the new dental care and pharmacare programs, then thank the NDP (and workers movements) for making them a reality.

As we approach election day, in this pivotal moment in our journey as a nation, it’s an important reminder to all Canadians. We need strong NDP representation in Parliament to protect our public services and our social safety net, both from Trump’s attacks and from domestic pressure from the likes of Poilievre who want to vaporize our public services and replace them with American-style for-profit imitations.