Is Canada a dangerous bastion of socialism? According to Trump, maybe: Don Pittis

U.S. President Donald Trump delivering his state of the union address flanked by Vice-President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Trump warned against the Democrats' embrace of socialism. (Doug Mills/Reuters)

Both socialism and liberalism have different nuances of meaning, some of which are clearly applied in Canada.

Now, is Canada a dangerous bastion of socialism? This question arises because of the alarm that has been shown by US President Donald Trump. Who could apparently consider that Canada is based on socialism?

And that is, Trump has used the speech of the union last week fueling partisan anxiety. Trump expressed in his speech before the Congress, “Here in the United States, we are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country”, and also pointed out, “The United States was founded on freedom and independence, and not on coercion, domination and control of the government”.

It should be noted that while speaking, the network cameras went to the self-declared supporter of socialism, Senator Bernie Sanders. While according to US standards to the left representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

What is really alarming for the United States? It seems not to be for Canadians

For a large part of Canadians and for most of the other liberal democracies of the world, the socialism of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez that advocates universal health care and moderation of the extremes of wealth and poverty of United States does not seem to be very alarming. Being that a large part of the Canadians who were raised in what has been termed as a mixed economy, such kind of socialism does not really cause any fear.

Professor Carleton University and former director of the Institute of Political Economy of the school, Laura Macdonald, said through a phone call, “Socialism is a broad ideology that has different variants, but in general is associated with greater faith in the role of the State in the face of the market, and skepticism about the capacity of the market, on its own, to generate growth and social equity”.

Likewise, she expressed, “I do not think Donald Trump calls us socialists, but he probably thinks we are dangerously close to that and that may be one of the reasons why he does not like Canada very much”.

While on the other hand, the theorist at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, specializing in the economic and intellectual origins of political thought, Stella Gaon, has said that Trump’s comments go back to the era of McCarthyism.

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Source: Don Pittis | CBC News