THE STAR’S VIEWS

Canadians can’t afford to be smug or complacent. We can learn from this upheaval,

As we attempt to wrap our minds around the surreal outcome of the American presidential election, Canadians might understandably be tempted by smugness. After all, we did not just imperil our nation’s progress and destabilize the world order by electing a uniquely unfit and profoundly unqualified candidate to our highest office, a man who fomented fear and hate and incited violence along the way.

On the contrary, it wasn’t long ago that we sent Justin Trudeau and his sunny ways to the Prime Minister’s Office, an act that has inspired international admiration (for reasons both founded and not), rather than fear and sadness. Just last week, the Economist magazine declared on its cover that liberty has moved north and Canada has become an “example to the world.”

Yet if there is one lesson the Trump tragedy holds for our country, it is that complacency in these times of upheaval can be gangrenous. The social and economic factors that fuelled Trump’s rise and the Brexit folly before it are at play here, too: economic anxiety and rising inequality, the growing distrust of institutions and “elites,” and our own examples of xenophobia and scapegoating.

These troubles are clearly not as acute or as widespread here as in the United States, but Canada is by no means insulated from this anti-establishment moment. We, too, ignore or dismiss the disaffected and disengaged at our peril.

Already politicians are emerging to promote a kind of Trumpism here at home. Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch sent out a fundraising email on Wednesday morning celebrating Trump’s victory. “Our American cousins threw out the elites,” she wrote. “It’s an exciting message and one that we need delivered in Canada as well.”

Leitch is set on mirroring the U.S. presidentelect, subtly regressive slogan and all. Trump ominously wants to “make America great again”; Leitch to “stand up for Canadian values.” She won’t be the only imitator.

We should not assume that there is no Canadian audience for this. Here, as in the U.S. and elsewhere, globalization has left too many behind in recent decades, prompting a steep rise in precarious work and income inequality. As elsewhere, these economic trends have been accompanied by troubling social ones: polls have shown a consistent decline in social cohesion, trust in government and, more recently, openness to immigration. A recent Forum poll found that two-thirds of Canadians support Leitch’s plan to screen prospective immigrants for “anti-Canadian values,” anti-Canadian though it may be.

The growing sense that politics and economics are rigged by the few against the many has already shaped electoral outcomes here. In Toronto, where precarity and inequality are particularly rampant, we saw a demagogue rise. Rob Ford, it must be remembered, was elected by a populist movement not unlike Trump’s and remained popular, despite his infamous failings, until illness forced him out of politics.

No, we are not incapable of U.S.-style self-immolation. So we must learn the lessons of Trump’s stunning win. Decent Conservatives should do as too many Republicans would not: condemn, in no uncertain terms, the politics of fear and division that Leitch and her ilk seek to practice.

More important, progressives, including the Liberal government, must succeed where the Democrats so consequentially fell short: by offering a positive vision for our country that rivals the emotional appeal of the demagogue’s bitter promises — and without ignoring that things are not all right for many Canadians.

We have seen twice in recent months the danger of dismissing those who think the system is rigged. The prime minister was right to say on Wednesday that Trump won in part because too many citizens were not sharing in the country’s prosperity and that this problem is one Ottawa must also address.

Many Canadians watched Trump’s win in horror. We were powerless to stop it. But there is something we can do. We can urge our politicians to take seriously economic anxiety at home so that populists proffering fraudulent solutions don’t fill the void.

Already politicians are emerging to promote a kind of Trumpism here at home