Charlie Angus’s Resistance Tour made a stop in Picton last week. An inspired speaker, Mr. Angus charged up a crowd of 325. 

Moderator Chris Fanning opened the proceedings by noting the house was full, so those wishing to up their elbows should be mindful of their neighbours.

Being mindful of the neighbours — or, really, a neighbour, was, of course, the evening’s theme.

Mr. Angus was introduced by NDP Candidate Kate Crothers, who connected the cataclysms of just the past six months — Israel’s increasingly deadly siege of Palestine, Donald Trump’s narrow defeat of Kamala Harris in the November election, and the subsequent U.S. turn turn on Ukraine, Greenland, and Canada, among others, as a series of assaults signaling a new world order demanding fierce resistance.

The job before us is 
restoring the rule of law, restoring decency, 
restoring democracy.
It’s a big task, but I think we’re up for it. 
Don’t you? 

Charlie Angus

In Canada, that resistance is coalescing around the populism of former NDP MP Charlie Angus, who announced earlier this month that he will not be seeking to lead his party after the resignation of Jagmeet Singh following April’s federal election.

“My first priority is the Resistance, to the fascism taking over the U.S. and its gangster regime,” he said in Picton, to loud applause.

“The front line is here in Canada. We are leading the global resistance. All eyes are on Canada. Ukraine is a front line, and the other is Canada and we have to hold that line.”

Mr. Angus’s “Resistance Tour” is creating a movement out of largely grassroots opposition to the chaos in the United States. Mr. Angus publishes a Resistance essay on Substack daily, and is touring Canada to encourage Canadians to “hold the line.” Stops here and in Kingston last week followed major pre-election rallies in B.C. and Alberta. Video of his speeches and rallies, including in Picton, can be found on YouTube.

He reminded the crowd that Canada’s resistance to the U.S., which has attracted global attention, started spontaneously, in the grassroots.

“All of a sudden, in Canada, after that gangster started threatening our country, we decided we didn’t want to buy American anymore. We aren’t interested in that. We aren’t travelling there, where they are kidnapping people off the streets and sending them to concentration camps in El Salvador without any kind of attention to due process, human rights, or justice.”

“We aren’t buying that. And boy are they noticing. The whole world is noticing. Canada is holding the line, while Europe and the U.K. waffle. We are holding the line. And we have to keep holding it. 

“Keep up that boycott. It’s incredibly powerful.”

Recent figures on travel declines to the U.S. are astonishing. Canadian travel alone is down 75 percent in some markets,  and about a third overall, while Europe, the U.K., and other countries around the world are registering declines of 40 percent or more over 2024 levels.

Mr. Angus addressed a range of topics, including what to watch for. “The Maple MAGA movement in Canada is not going to go away. Now they are going to descend on Alberta and start trying to break up Canada, break up our country. That there is a separatist movement in Alberta now is not a coincidence.

“People door knocking, saying Alberta should separate? They are coming from the United States. A huge social media campaign trying to break up Canada — that’s what is coming.”

Mr. Angus’s plain speaking is itself a form of resistance. “We are talking about the rise of fascism in the United States,” he said to loud applause. “Those are not words we use lightly: the upending of the rule of law, the attack on the global economy, and a narcissistic megalomaniac threatening the existence of Canada. That’s what’s happening. Let’s call it what it is.

“The mainstream media, the ‘he said, she said’ formats of traditional news reporting, the talking points. That is not meeting this moment. We have a convicted felon in office, a sexual predator, who last week in the Oval Office said ‘never say never’ about making Canada the 51st state.

“‘Never say never’. That’s what a predator says. They refuse to take no for an answer.

“Where’s the vision in denying all this? People are pretending the catastrophic upending of the global order is not happening. We aren’t going to stand for that.” 

Questions from the audience addressed  how to combat the flood of disinformation on social media. Mr. Angus suggested a grassroots, algorithm-free shared internet was the way to go, and noted he had left X for BlueSky.

A highschool teacher from Belleville  worried about the boys and younger men voting for Poilievre in large numbers, attracted by the false populism of authoritarian movements. “Ways must be found to include them in the conversation around resistance,” she said.

Another noted The Regent could be used to show movies about history, because forgetting the past would lead to its repetition. “I’m from Germany,” said artist Yvonne Lammerich. “I grew up next to the remains of a concentration camp. When I hear Trump speaking, the hair on my arms stands up on end. I know what he is talking about, but young people do not. This theatre could be used to show films on these historical events that are so important to the whole world. Because forgetting them means we will repeat them.”

Mr. Angus ended by naming the moment an “interregnum,” a term from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks.

“We are in the interregnum, that is the pause, the time in between one regime, the rule of law and democracy, and what’s coming next. The interregnum is when the ruling order, the rule of law has been breached, and it could be suspended.

“Since the election of November 5th, we have been living in the interregnum — between the certainty of democracy and the threat of authoritarianism, between the rule of law and what comes next.

“What the future holds, no one knows but gangster leaders like Trump, Putin and Netanyahu are showing us their dark path.

“It is much easier to stand up to fascists before they get established than waiting for them to lock in their power.

“This is our moment and we must meet it.”