Artist Spotlight: Feels Zine

by Mikaela Brewer for The 44 North

Senior Editor

Photo of Feels Zine’s “Sexy” issue by Melissa Blackall

“[Q]ueer romances have far fewer representations in the media, and often the ones we do aren’t written by us, and are rooted in pain and trauma. This, for me, is a huge part of why I believe queer love stories are so important to share–because seeing ourselves represented gives those of us who don’t yet feel safe or seen a place to have their experiences reflected back and honoured.”

Editor's Note: Recently, I had a chance to speak with the co-founders of a zine I've long admired. We chatted all things queer love, romance, reclaiming sexiness, and more! Please check out their newest issue, "Hunger," and many others here. —Mikaela

The 44 North (44N): Firstly, before we begin, could you share why you started something like Feels Zine? How do you, your families, ancestors, community, politics, and values braid into your work on these zines? Where/how would you like folks to witness/experience this when spending time with the zines' pages? Is there anything you hope people pay particular attention to? Take action with/from?

Feels Zine (FZ): FEELS started with a dream and a friendship! Hannah, our co-founder and creative director, has worked in magazine design for a long time, but always wanted to have her own. Sarah, the co-founder and editor, is a social worker by trade and a big fan of talking about feelings. After visiting the Toronto Art Book Fair about a decade ago, we made the decision to take the leap and try making our own.

Thematically, it comes from a couple of decades of friendship centred around a deep comfort with each other discussing challenging feelings in a culture that does not always support or encourage it. It is also deeply political in nature, focusing on justice, community care, and storytelling. 

In terms of experiencing FEELS, one thing we’ve really loved is hearing the vast array of rituals people who consume it seem to have that are very personal to them. Just like feelings! We want people to sit with the content in a way that feels most true to them. The content is emotional and often challenging, and we want that to feel as safe as possible. 

Co-founders Hannah (left) and Sarah (right) at a booth offering Feels Zine issues

44N: I love that your publication is about feelings. More specifically, I admire the message that our inner worlds aren't necessarily safest when kept private. As you say, "Having an open dialogue about what’s going on inside of us can foster meaningful connection and make us feel less alone, especially in the social-media era that asks us to curate and polish our lives and feelings before sharing them—if we share them at all." When you began curating & creating zines like "Sexy" and your "Queer Romance Mini Zine," I'd love to know how you thought about representing feelings, especially since so many other emotions are present & connected to queer sex positivity, health, and safety. How did these two zines, in particular, fit into the fabric of what Feels Zine is & hopes to do?

FZ: With those issues in particular, we wanted to move away from media representations of what it means to be sexy, or what queer romance looks like, and shift the focus back onto how it actually looks in our lives—far messier and more nuanced, but also more real. As a queer person (Sarah here, so speaking for myself), I’ve always found myself disappointed in the majority of representations of queer love and sex—so much so that when I find something I connect to, I won’t shut up about it and am so excited about it. I felt that way in receiving the submissions for those issues—so thrilled to see experiences that might look different from my subjective experiences, but also so similar in the feelings and the authenticity in them. I think this is really the epitome of what we want FEELS to be—a space for something we feel in our guts as true to life.

44N: Issue 18, "Sexy," explored feeling sexy, worth, and desire. Safe, positive sex & sexiness can empower us, as you say, and should be something to celebrate! Across the work included in this zine, how did you curate/capture this beautiful balance of feeling sexy—not only re: sex, but also in how we show up in the world? 

FZ: One thing that people may not know about our process is that, once we put out a call for submissions with our overarching mission statement, we really let the submissions we receive guide the final product. We work hard to curate that mission statement to touch on different viewpoints and angles to a feeling and not lock in on any one element. But at the end of the day, the most important component is how people relate to that statement and that feeling. As much as it would be nice for our egos to say we captured all that, the truth is, the contributors did that work. We also worked hard to curate submissions that explored the spectrum of how sexiness shows up for us—in ourselves, with others, with the world, and how we communicate about it. We don’t want to showcase just one type of experience—we want as many unique experiences as possible.

The front cover of Feels Zine’s “Sexy” issue

44N: Your "Queer Romance Mini Zine" explored queer romance as an act of resistance & resilience, creating intentional space for queer love stories. I so admire this. And in conversation with what we've been discussing: romance, love, and desire aren't insufficient without sex, of course! Intimacy beyond sex is a vital part of queer love stories, and I'd love to know how this mini zine approached queer romance beyond or alongside sex?

FZ: The complementing mini zines are a concept we’ve used a few times over the years, and come straight from the submissions we receive. Every once in a while, when we’re curating an issue and reviewing submissions, a related but distinct emotion or topic jumps out at us that necessitates space-making. As we worked through our Pride Issue submissions, this became very clear as a topic that was resonating with a lot of people, and a huge component of their subjective queer identities. Romance can involve sex for a lot of people, but it isn’t a necessary component, and we hope that that rings true in the overall storytelling of the Queer Romance mini zine. 

The other thing I would note, which I mentioned above, is that queer romances have far fewer representations in the media, and often the ones we do aren’t written by us, and are rooted in pain and trauma. This, for me, is a huge part of why I believe queer love stories are so important to share–because seeing ourselves represented gives those of us who don’t yet feel safe or seen a place to have their experiences reflected back and honoured.

The front cover of Feels Zine’s “Queer Romance” mini zine

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About Feels Zine

A collage of Feels Zine issues

Feels is a publication about feelings. It is a place to explore, to share, and to be honest. Having an open dialogue about what’s going on inside of us can foster meaningful connection and make us feel less alone, especially in the social-media era that asks us to curate and polish our lives and feelings before sharing them — if we share them at all. Feels believes there are no good or bad feelings — the value comes from how we relate to them, how we experience them, and what we learn from them.

Feels believes in inclusion and recognizes that certain voices have been given the lion’s share of the spotlight throughout history. Our pages are for everyone. We are a feminist, sex-positive, 2SLGBTQ*, anti-racist, anti-colonial publication.

—Feels Zine Instagram & website

The Pathogen of Perception: Quantifying the Multi-Dimensional Cost of Medical Misinformation

by Jason Wang for The 44 North

Winner of our Inaugural Essay Contest

A doctor crossing their arms in front of a purple background with cartoon vaccine syringes. Their face is covered by anti-vaccination social media posts.

"The cost of misinformation shows up in obituaries and hospital bills. The value of a scientifically literate society shows up in the deaths that never happen and the crises we prevent before they spiral. My grandmother is alive today because accurate information eventually reached her through the noise. How many others could we save if we made sure it reached them first?"

In the Canadian Armed Forces, we're taught that the most dangerous threat is often the one that remains hidden. Today, that danger is no longer confined to a physical battlefield; it has taken root in the digital spread of medical misinformation.

As a Grade 12 student aspiring for a future in neurosurgery, I see misinformation not merely as a social ill, but as a clinical hazard. It behaves less like an abstract idea and more like a pathogen, producing tangible harms that strain public health systems, burden the economy, and undermine collective safety. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, my own grandmother—a woman who survived the 2003 SARS outbreak in China and understood the visceral reality of respiratory illness—found herself paralyzed by skepticism. Despite her lived history, the sheer volume of digital misinformation regarding vaccine safety led her to abhor the very medical breakthrough designed to protect her.

It was only through exhaustive persuasion and the presentation of rigorous clinical data that she begrudgingly consented to immunization. Her hesitation was not born of ignorance, but of a systemic failure in information integrity. It was through this experience that I realized medical misinformation acts as an informational pathogen that imposes a tripartite cost: biological, economic, and societal, ultimately illustrating that the erosion of scientific literacy is a tangible threat to human life and the stability of the healthcare system.

Misinformation is not a victimless exchange of ideas; it has a direct, pathological impact on human physiology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers attempted to quantify the death toll attributable to vaccine refusal. A 2022 study published in The Lancet estimated that COVID-19 vaccination prevented approximately 14.4 million deaths globally in the first year of availability (Watson et al., 2022). Working backward from that figure, the Kaiser Family Foundation calculated that between June 2021 and March 2022, at least 234,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States could have been prevented if unvaccinated individuals had received the vaccine (Amin et al., 2022). These were not deaths caused by vaccine scarcity, logistical failures, or overwhelmed hospitals. Medical intervention existed and was available. What failed was the transmission of accurate information to the populations who needed it most.

The pathway from misinformation to mortality operates through two distinct but interconnected mechanisms. At the individual level, false beliefs about vaccine safety leave people vulnerable to severe disease outcomes. COVID-19 disproportionately threatens specific populations: the elderly, individuals with underlying conditions like diabetes or cardiovascular disease, and the immunocompromised. When a 70-year-old diabetic encounters claims that "natural immunity is superior" or that vaccines alter DNA, they're being steered toward a preventable death. The data from 2021 is unambiguous: unvaccinated individuals died and were at higher risk of infection from COVID-19 at rates 13.9 and 53.2 times higher than their vaccinated counterparts, respectively (Johnson et al., 2022). That mortality gap represents actual bodies, not abstract risk calculations.

At the population level, vaccine hesitancy degrades what epidemiologists term “herd immunity, the phenomenon where high vaccination coverage protects even those who cannot be vaccinated by suppressing overall transmission. Herd immunity requires crossing specific thresholds: for measles, approximately 95% of the population must be immune to prevent sustained outbreaks (Osman et al., 2022). When misinformation depresses vaccination rates below these critical levels, diseases that had been eliminated for decades resurface.

Canada's experience is instructive. Between 2019 and 2023, routine childhood vaccination coverage dropped from 90% to 82% (Jacobsen, 2025). In November 2025, Canada lost its measles elimination status after 27 years. Canada recorded over 5,100 cases in a single year (Soucheray, 2025). Two infants died after contracting the virus in utero, before they could be vaccinated. The virus had not mutated into a more dangerous form. The vaccine had not failed. The only variable that changed was information integrity. The cruelty of this dynamic lies in its distribution of harm. The individuals who bear the biological cost are often not the ones who rejected the medical intervention. The infants who died in Canada's measles outbreak made no decisions about vaccine safety. The immunocompromised cancer patient who contracts COVID-19 from an unvaccinated colleague did not choose vulnerability. The child who develops measles because their parents believed discredited claims about vaccine-induced autism did not consent to that infection. When misinformation convinces one person to refuse vaccination, the biological consequences radiate outward, creating community-wide vulnerabilities that extend far beyond individual choice.

Beyond direct biological harm, misinformation creates a preventable fiscal crisis for healthcare systems built on the principle of prevention. The economic logic of vaccination is straightforward: a small upfront cost prevents far larger expenses later.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, this logic played out in real time. Between June and November 2021, hospitalizations of unvaccinated adults cost the U.S. healthcare system approximately $13.8 billion, according to research by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation (Farrenkopf, 2022). That figure represents just five months in a single country. The vaccines were free to patients. The hospital stays were not. ICU beds, ventilators, weeks of round-the-clock nursing care, and post-discharge rehabilitation drove costs that dwarfed what prevention would have required. Each COVID-19 hospitalization in Canada averaged roughly $20,000 for non-ICU care and exceeded $50,000 for ICU treatment, according to CIHI (CBC News, 2021). Across hundreds of thousands of largely preventable hospitalizations, the resulting economic waste becomes staggering. The Commonwealth Fund estimated that COVID-19 vaccination prevented approximately $900 billion in U.S. healthcare costs during the first year of vaccine availability alone (Schneider et al., 2022).

The opportunity cost of this spending is as important as the headline numbers. The National Cancer Institute operates on an annual budget of about $6.9 billion. The $13.8 billion spent on preventable COVID hospitalizations in five months could have funded nearly two years of cancer research. It could have paid the annual salaries of roughly 138,000 nurses or purchased more than 2,700 MRI machines, substantially reducing diagnostic delays. Instead, those resources were consumed treating a disease for which effective, free prevention already existed.

Canada experienced a similar dynamic. Fraser Institute estimated that the Canadian government spent approximately $359.7 billion responding to COVID-19, with an estimated 25% (89.9 billion) wasted (Fuss, Hill, 2023). While not all of that spending was avoidable, vaccine hesitancy accounted for billions that could otherwise have modernized hospital infrastructure, expanded mental-health services, or reduced surgical backlogs that left tens of thousands of Canadians waiting in pain.

Outbreak response costs further expose the inefficiency created by misinformation. When vaccine-preventable diseases resurge, public health systems must mobilize extensive emergency operations: contact tracing, laboratory testing, isolation protocols, and redeployment of clinical staff. Contact tracing a single measles case can cost between $10,000 and $50,000 (Hyle et al., 2018). A 2018–2019 measles outbreak in New York involving 649 cases cost the city approximately $8.4 million in emergency response alone (about $12,900 per case), excluding hospital treatment (Zucker et al., 2020). By comparison, the two-dose MMR vaccine costs roughly $100 (Antoneshyn, 2025). These are not abstract inefficiencies; they are real budget line items and real staff hours diverted from other priorities.

As immunologist Dawn Bowdish has noted, cuts to public-health funding, the lack of a national vaccine registry, physician shortages, and widespread misinformation reinforce one another. Budget cuts weaken the infrastructure needed to counter misinformation. Misinformation lowers vaccination rates. Outbreaks then consume far more funding than the original cuts saved. This reveals something fundamental about how healthcare systems function. Canada’s universal healthcare model rests on an implicit social contract: individuals accept evidence-based prevention, and the system provides care when prevention fails. Misinformation breaks that contract. An unvaccinated patient occupying an ICU bed with preventable disease displaces care for heart-attack victims, trauma patients, or people awaiting surgery. The burden extends beyond money to system-wide constraints: staff burnout, delayed procedures, and overcrowded emergency rooms. Misinformation does not merely waste resources; it degrades the basic capacity of healthcare systems to function.

The biological and economic costs of misinformation ultimately converge in a third dimension: the breakdown of collective capacity to respond to shared threats. As a member of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves, I have been trained to recognize that mission success depends on accurate intelligence. When field units receive false information about enemy positions or terrain conditions, operations fail, and soldiers die. Public health operates under the same constraint.

Populations cannot mount effective responses to disease outbreaks if they cannot agree on how diseases spread or whether medical interventions work. This is not merely a problem of political disagreement. It represents a fundamental breakdown in the social infrastructure required for coordinated action during crises.

The erosion is measurable. Research by Obohwemu et al. found that lack of confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility have all been highlighted as barriers to vaccination uptake among parents to different degrees (Obohwemu et al., 2022). The effect persisted months after exposure, suggesting that misinformation creates lasting changes in trust rather than temporary confusion.

A 2021 study by Loomba et al. published in Nature examined the impact of misinformation on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance across 5,000 participants in the United Kingdom. Participants exposed to anti-vaccine misinformation showed a 6.2 percentage point decrease in willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and exposure to misinformation emphasizing vaccine side effects reduced stated vaccine acceptance by 6.4 percentage points (Loomba et al., 2021). The effects were largest among individuals who were initially unsure about vaccination, demonstrating how misinformation specifically targets and exploits uncertainty.

The consequences extend beyond immediate health decisions. During February 2022, protests opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates blocked downtown Ottawa for three weeks, disrupted international trade at border crossings, and required the invocation of the Emergencies Act for the first time since its creation in 1988 (Government of Canada, 2022). The protesters' core belief, that vaccine requirements represented government overreach rather than public health necessity, had been cultivated by years of online misinformation about vaccine safety and efficacy.

Regardless of one's position on specific policy choices, the event demonstrated a critical failure: a substantial portion of the population had become unreachable by conventional public health communication. They were not evaluating evidence about transmission dynamics or hospital capacity. They were operating within a constructed narrative where vaccination itself was the threat. This matters because complex modern societies require institutional trust to function. Climate adaptation, pandemic preparedness, food safety regulation, and infrastructure maintenance all depend on public willingness to defer to technical expertise on questions beyond individual competence. When misinformation convinces populations that expert consensus is either fraudulent or politically motivated, that deference collapses. The immediate result may be preventable deaths during a pandemic. The long-term result is a society that has lost the ability to protect itself from foreseeable dangers.

Misinformation does not merely kill people in the present. It disables the mechanisms societies need to prevent future deaths.

My grandmother eventually got her COVID-19 vaccination, but it took weeks of persuasion and countless conversations before she trusted the science over what she had read online. Millions of others never made it to that point. The 234,000 preventable deaths in the United States, the return of measles in Canada after 27 years of elimination, the billions spent treating diseases we already knew how to prevent—these numbers tell a straightforward story about what happens when people cannot tell truth from fiction. Misinformation kills people, drains resources that could save other lives, and breaks down our ability to respond when the next crisis arrives. But the same networks that carry lies can also carry truth when people know how to recognize the difference.

The answer is not censorship. It is teaching people how to think critically about health information, the same way we teach them to read or do algebra. My generation has grown up watching misinformation kill people we know. We understand how it spreads because we have seen it happen in real time. That experience can become our greatest defense if we treat scientific literacy as essential to navigating modern life safely. The cost of misinformation shows up in obituaries and hospital bills. The value of a scientifically literate society shows up in the deaths that never happen and the crises we prevent before they spiral.

My grandmother is alive today because accurate information eventually reached her through the noise. How many others could we save if we made sure it reached them first?

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About the Author

Jason Wang is a Grade 12 Senior student at St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School in Peterborough, Ontario. He currently works as a lifeguard, swim instructor, piano teacher and recently, an Army reservist. He wishes to pursue a career in medicine and neuroscience/neurosurgery in the future. He is also the creator of “The Axonora Initiative,” a recent YouTube channel focusing on tackling misinformation.”

Connect with Jason on personal Instagram: @jimjamwong08 or through The Axonora Initiative @axonorainitiative

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References

• Amin, K., Ortaliza, J., Cox, C., Michaud, J., & Kates, J. (2022, April 21). COVID-19 preventable mortality. KFF. https://www.kff.org/covid-19/covid-19-continues-to-be-a-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s/

• Antoneshyn, A. (2025, October 23). Free vaccines cheaper than consequences of low vaccination rate: Alberta Medical Association. CTVNews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/free-vaccines-cheaper-than-consequences-of-low-vaccination-rate-alberta-medical-association/

• Average cost for COVID-19 ICU patients estimated at more than $50,000: report. (2021, September 9). CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cihi-covid19-canada-hospitalcost-1.6168531

• Fuss, J., & Hill, T. (2023, June 27). Fiscal waste during the pandemic in Canada and the United States. Fraser Institute. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/fiscal-waste-during-pandemic-canada-and-united-states

• Government of Canada. (2022, February 18). February 14, 2022, declaration of public order emergency. Justice.Gc.Ca. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/section58.html

• Hyle, E. P., Fields, N. F., Fiebelkorn, A. P., Walker, A. T., Gastañaduy, P., Rao, S. R., Ryan, E. T., LaRocque, R. C., & Walensky, R. P. (2019). The clinical impact and cost-effectiveness of measles-mumps-rubella vaccination to prevent measles importations among international travelers from the United States. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 69(2), 306–315. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciy861

• Jacobsen, K. H. (2025). Canada loses its official “measles-free” status. Gavi.org. https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/canada-loses-its-official-measles-free-status

• Johnson, A. G., Amin, A. B., Ali, A. R., Hoots, B., Cadwell, B. L., Arora, S., Avoundjian, T., Awofeso, A. O., Barnes, J., Bayoumi, N. S., Busen, K., Chang, C., Cima, M., Crockett, M., Cronquist, A., Davidson, S., Davis, E., Delgadillo, J., Dorabawila, V., … Scobie, H.M. (2022). COVID-19 incidence and death rates among unvaccinated and fully vaccinated adults with and without booster doses during periods of Delta and Omicron variant emergence—25 U.S. jurisdictions, April 4–December 25, 2021. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 71(4), 132–138. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7104e2

• Loomba, S., de Figueiredo, A., Piatek, S. J., de Graaf, K., & Larson, H. J. (2021). Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(3), 337–348. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01056-1

• Obohwemu, K., Christie-de Jong, F., & Ling, J. (2022). Parental childhood vaccine hesitancy and predicting uptake of vaccinations: A systematic review. Primary Health Care Research & Development, 23, e68. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1463423622000512

• Osman, S., Crowcroft, N., McLachlan, E., Hatchette, T., Perez-Iratxeta, C., Joh, E., Wright, J., Halperin, S. A., Deeks, S., Wilson, S., Buchan, S., Ward, B., Gubbay, J., Brisson, M., Serhir, B., Severini, A., & Bolotin, S. (2022). Population immunity to measles in Canada using Canadian Health Measures survey data—A Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) study. Vaccine, 40(23), 3228–3235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.04.011

• Schneider, E. C., Shah, A., Sah, P., Vilches, T., Pandey, A., Moghadas, S. M., & Galvani, A. P (2022, April 8). Impact of U.S. COVID-19 vaccination efforts: An update on averted deaths, hospitalizations, and health care costs through March 2022. Commonwealth Fund. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/impact-us-covid-19-vaccinationeffortsmarch-update

• Soucheray, S. M. A. (2025, November 10). Canada loses measles elimination status after record year of outbreaks. CIDRAP. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/canada-loses-measles-elimination-status-after-record-year-outbreaks

• Watson, O. J., Barnsley, G., Toor, J., Hogan, A. B., Winskill, P., & Ghani, A. C. (2022). Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: A mathematical modelling study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 22(9), 1293–1302. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00320-6

• Zucker, J. R., Rosen, J. B., Iwamoto, M., Arciuolo, R. J., Langdon-Embry, M., Vora, N. M., Rakeman, J. L., Isaac, B. M., Jean, A., Asfaw, M., Hawkins, S. C., Merrill, T. G., Kennelly, M. O., Maldin Morgenthau, B., Daskalakis, D. C., & Barbot, O. (2020). Consequences of undervaccination—measles outbreak, New York City, 2018–2019. The New England Journal of Medicine, 382(11), 1009–1017.https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1912514

Watching Minneapolis from Canada: When Power Stops Explaining Itself​

by Gillian Smith-Clark for The 44 North

Editor-in-Chief

Canadian Border Inspection sign on a fence

"Young Canadians, in particular, are acutely aware of this permeability. Many consume U.S. news in real time, encounter the same viral footage, and experience the same unease when democratic norms appear fragile. The fear is not that Canada is identical to the United States, but that no democracy is immune to erosion—especially when power begins to justify itself rather than explain itself." ​​

“Yet our greatest threat isn’t the outsiders among us,

but those among us who never look within.

Fear not those without papers,

but those without conscience.”

—“For Alex Jeffrey Pretti, Murdered by I.C.E., January 24, 2026”

Amanda Gorman

In the wake of at least 32 people dying in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025, came the deadly killings of two civilians—Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti—in early 2026. The Orwellian echoes in the Trump administration’s response to both deaths reverberated far beyond the borders of the United States.

In Canada, and elsewhere, the reaction has been a mixture of rage, grief, disbelief, and deep unease. Not only because lives were lost, but because of how they were lost—and which lives were publicly named, mourned, or quietly omitted. Conflicting official accounts, disputed video evidence, victim-blaming, and the rapid hardening of narratives left little room for accountability, introspection, or restraint.

What has also gone largely unexamined is who has been missing from much of the coverage. Keith Porter, a Black man, and Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant, were also killed in the context of immigration enforcement—yet their names have been far less widely reported. Whether through indifference or intention, this silence compounds the violence itself. It suggests that some deaths demand explanation, while others are simply absorbed into the background noise of enforcement.

What makes these events so unsettling is not simply that violence occurred; it is what they suggest about a broader shift in how state power is exercised and justified. When lethal force is deployed against civilians in the name of law enforcement, and transparency and accountability lag behind, trust erodes quickly—not only within the communities directly affected, but across borders. Minneapolis, in this sense, is not an isolated flashpoint. It is a critical juncture.

Over the past several years, immigration enforcement in the United States has become increasingly militarized, with expanded authority, aggressive tactics, and limited public oversight. Federal agencies tasked with civil enforcement now operate with levels of force once reserved for national security operations. At the same time, rapid expansion and accelerated hiring have raised troubling questions about training, qualifications, and oversight. These shifts have unfolded gradually, often justified as necessary responses to crisis or disorder. But their cumulative effect is profound: the normalization of state violence in spaces where civilians expect protection, not confrontation.

For Canadians watching closely, this raises uncomfortable questions. Canada often defines itself in contrast to the United States — as more restrained, more human-rights-focused, more humane in its approach to immigration and policing. And in many respects, those distinctions matter. But proximity matters too. The two countries share deeply intertwined roots: colonialism, families, economies, media ecosystems, and political currents. What happens in the U.S. does not stay there—not culturally, not economically, and not psychologically.

Young Canadians, in particular, are acutely aware of this permeability. Many consume U.S. news in real time, encounter the same viral footage, and experience the same unease when democratic norms appear fragile. The fear is not that Canada is identical to the United States, but that no democracy is immune to erosion—especially when power begins to justify itself rather than explain itself.

This broader sense of rupture was articulated by Mark Carney in his recent address at the World Economic Forum. Speaking to an audience grappling with global instability, Carney argued that the assumptions underpinning the postwar international order—shared rules, dependable allies, and a baseline commitment to human rights—can no longer be taken for granted. The world, he suggested, has entered a period in which power is more frequently asserted than constrained.

In that context, Carney called on so-called “middle power” countries like Canada to rethink their posture—not by retreating into isolation, and not by clinging uncritically to old alignments, but by building strategic autonomy: the capacity to act independently in defence of national interests while remaining anchored to core values such as human rights, sovereignty, and the rule of law. He acknowledged the understandable impulse toward protectionism, but cautioned:

“A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transnationalism will become harder to replicate.”

Strategic autonomy is often misunderstood as a turn inward. In reality, it is about resilience and choice. It means diversifying partnerships so that no single relationship becomes a point of vulnerability. It means ensuring that economic security and diplomatic decisions reflect democratic values rather than sheer necessity. And it means strengthening institutions at home so that rights are not contingent on political mood or external pressure.

The relevance of this framework becomes clearer when viewed alongside events like those in Minneapolis. When even close allies act unpredictably—or in ways that challenge shared norms—alignment alone is no longer sufficient. Despite the claims of a vocal minority, values cannot be outsourced, nor can accountability be assumed. Strategic autonomy, seen in this light, is not about distancing Canada from the world, but about ensuring that engagement does not come at the cost of founding principles.

Why This Matters Now

Borders don’t stop instability.

Events in the U.S.—especially those involving state violence and civil liberties—reverberate outward and cross borders. For Canadians, geographic and cultural proximity means exposure, whether we welcome it or not.

Values require action.

Human rights and accountability depend on both institutions and individuals willing to defend them, particularly when norms begin to erode elsewhere.

Strategic autonomy is about protection, not isolation.

It is the ability to act with clarity and independence in a world where power is increasingly transactional.

Young people are inheriting this landscape.

The generation coming of age now faces overlapping crises—democratic backsliding, climate instability, and rising state coercion. Understanding how power operates is no longer abstract. It is urgent and personal.

Final Thoughts

What is unfolding in Minneapolis is not simply an American story, nor is it one Canadians can afford to watch with detached concern. It is a reminder that rights often erode quietly before they disappear loudly—and that proximity to power does not guarantee protection from its excesses.

It is also a moment to think seriously about what both our shared and individual values actually are. A starting point may be the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reminds us that “the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

Canada’s task in this moment is neither complacency nor moral superiority, but clarity: recognizing that human rights, accountability, and dignity must be actively defended, even when doing so is uncomfortable or costly.

Strategic autonomy, as Carney argued, is ultimately about responsibility—the responsibility to choose principle over convenience, to resist the normalization of violence, and to insist that power remains answerable to the people it claims to serve.

That work is unfinished. It must not be abdicated. And it belongs, in different ways, to all of us.

We can all insist on naming what institutions often erase—the people who disappear not only from life, but from memory:

“Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

crouches our power, the howl where we begin,

straining upon the edge of the crooked crater

of the worst of what we’ve been.”

—“For Renée Nicole Good,”

killed by I.C.E., January 7, 2026

Amanda Gorman