To Nie Kanada

It’s a pleasing question to consider, in a way: How has Canada been spared? Is it something we’ve been eating? Does our cold climate breed some resistance against would‑be strongmen? Over the past two years, looking at the club of Western democracies, commentators have remarked on how everyone but us seems to have come down with the same bug. Its symptoms are well known and frequently recited. Nationalism, xenophobia, anti-­elite sentiments, protectionism, isolationism, a rejection of international and counter-majoritarian institutions — the whole lot subsumed under the banners of “populism” and “illiberalism.” How is it that Canada has emerged unscathed?

A first response is that it has not. We have Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, we have Quebec’s recurring fixation with laïcité and eradication of religious symbols, and we have a re-­emerging Conservative Party that, at one point, seemed bent on replicating Donald Trump’s campaign tactics. Immigration may...