Borders, not justice: Challenging Canadian exceptionalism during the climate crisis

Canada is often depicted as a peace-loving and welcoming country on the world stage, partly due to its own efforts to distance itself from its noisy neighbours to the south. While these liberal notions of diversity and multiculturalism offer a refreshing alternative to the global rise in far-right nationalism and fascism, the political mythology of Canadian exceptionalism masks the country’s colonial past and present, especially during the climate crisis.

Despite the pervasive narratives of openness to immigration, Canada has developed various policies to deter migration to its borders and is one of the only countries to detain non-citizens indefinitely. On the environmental front, Canada leads the world in cumulative emissions per population and ranks second-highest in cumulative emissions per capita historically. This is not surprising, as the settler-colonial project of what is now known as “Canada” was achieved through the enslavement and genocide of Black and Indigenous people, as well as the mass destruction of the land and ecological systems.

Today, when Indigenous land defenders bravely resist capitalist extraction projects, they are met with the violence of colonial police forces, who simply exist to protect these neoliberal interests. Canada’s colonial empire is, of course, not limited to its artificial borders, as it is directly facilitating the subjugation of Indigenous lands and people around the world. 

Perhaps the most prominent example is that nearly half of the world’s mining companies are Canadian. In Latin America, Canadian entities control up to 70% of the mining activities in the region. These extractive activities have caused significant environmental damage, such as the disruption of water sources, agricultural livelihoods, and the health of communities. Like within its colonial borders, Canadian entities are responsible for the criminalisation of social protests and violent deaths of workers and opponents of these extractive mining projects. 

The struggle for land is more critical than ever amidst the rapacious expansion of colonialism and capitalism globally, yet the retribution for defending one’s land becomes deadlier every year. 

As an Eelam-Tamil residing in Canada, this struggle is also a fundamental part of my identity, as the Tamil people have long defended the right to their land while enduring the violent effects of dispossession, displacement and genocide. While I am displaced from my homeland, I am also a settler on Indigenous lands, which compels me to speak out against Canada’s violence against people and the land within and beyond its colonial borders.

The impoverishment of the Majority World

As both the climate crisis and migration regimes become more violent, we are at a critical juncture to challenge the myth of Canadian exceptionalism. To better understand this current moment we find ourselves in, I spoke with Syed Hussan, a spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Network (MRN) and the Executive Director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC). 

Both of these grassroots organisations are at the forefront of the interwoven fight for migrant and climate justice. As part of its #StatusforAll campaign, for example, MRN and MWAC underline how migrant farmworkers are not only displaced by climate events such as droughts in their home countries, but they are also disproportionately affected by heatwaves and wildfires in Canada. All the while, they are trapped in exploitative and precarious living and working conditions due to the lack of permanent immigration status. 

When discussing the complex connections between climate change, migration, and displacement, we must first recognise how we got to this point of global inequality in the first place, including the role of Canada in this equation.

“Canada is part of and very closely aligned with the American imperial project, and that means that it’s very closely aligned with the impoverishment of the Global South,” Hussan explains. This impoverishment, whether caused by unfair trade practices, the push to privatisation, or the destruction of public infrastructure through the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, forces people to move elsewhere to sustain their livelihoods. 

The climate crisis undoubtedly exacerbates the need to move and therefore begs the question: how should Canada respond to the impact of climate change on global migration and displacement?

The securitisation of climate migration and displacement

In my graduate studies research, I noticed that Canada’s response to climate migration and displacement has focused on security concerns and migration deterrence instead of standing in solidarity with the people of the Majority World. Government publications stoked fears of “mass migration,” a “crisis” at the border, and “pressure” on Canadian systems. In its more “humanitarian” view, it was argued that Canada should provide international assistance to prevent migration, exemplifying the aid-industrial complex and its long-held desire to keep people away from donor countries’ borders.

Canada’s hostile discourse on climate change and migration follows similar trends globally from the 1980s onward, as environmental and immigration issues were integrated into national security concerns. Eventually, these issues converged as environmental-related mobility was cast as this new, deeper threat to society. 

To understand more of this framing, I also reached out to Todd Miller, a longtime journalist and author who has reported extensively on the impacts of border securitisation on refugees and migrants. Reflecting on this trend, he writes to me, “It’s almost as if the climate analysis from the upper echelons is hoisted upon an already established other-isation of migrants.” Such alarmist projections are “used to justify more border fortification,” he adds. 

Most people stay within their own country or move to neighbouring ones in response to the effects of climate change. This can be due to many reasons, including connections to the land, culture and social networks, but also because they may lack the resources (financial and non-financial) to move far away from unfavourable and dangerous climate conditions. 

Yet, political and media actors ignore this reality and instead perpetuate alarmist discourse of climate migration and displacement to fortify colonial and imperial borders. However, framing human movement as a “crisis” is dangerous as it risks advancing the border-industrial complex by detaining people on the move, separating families, violently pushing back migrants and refugees, and forcing individuals into taking more perilous journeys as they simply seek safety and a better life in response to a burning planet.

While countries in the Imperial Core count pennies to absolve their responsibility for causing global climate destruction in the first place, they have no hesitation in expanding border budgets that dehumanise, criminalise and kill people on the move. The Transnational Institute estimates that the seven countries responsible for nearly half of the world’s historic greenhouse gas emissions collectively spent twice as much on border and immigration enforcement (over $33 billion) as on climate finance ($14 billion) between 2013 and 2018.

When I asked how this trend may evolve in the future, Todd, who was the lead author of this report, responds, “I believe that for countries – especially rich countries at the top of the global hierarchy like the United States – border enforcement has been and continues to be a way that it addresses climate change.” As experts predict this hardline approach to expand in the coming years, the impact for people on the move is “more and more borders, more difficulty, more suffering, more brutality.”

Hussan echoes this sentiment by aptly summarising this trend. “They’re choosing to build walls to keep out people who are weakened in the destruction of the planet instead of stopping the destruction of the planet,” he says. “Those who have destroyed the planet and profited from it see the impact, and they want to create safe zones for the rich, these bubbles.” However, states like Canada cannot afford to close the border completely, so they leave it open to particular types of people – “because the country needs an exploitative workforce and because people are displaced.” 

It’s a paradoxical cycle – states build border regimes to “protect” themselves from people who are moving away from the climate crisis, while also relying on some migrants who themselves are displaced due to climate change to exploit them and accumulate capital in a global migration system that is centred around the commodification of racialised people. 

As the climate crisis intensifies at an unprecedented rate, it seems the ruling class – politicians, corporations and the global elite – is more interested in unleashing political and economic violence on migrants and refugees than showing an ounce of humanity, revealing that we are facing a global solidarity crisis, not a manufactured “border crisis.”

The myth of Canadian exceptionalism

Canada is a perfect example of a country that has misplaced priorities on how to address the climate crisis meaningfully. Between 2013 and 2018, the government spent fifteen times more on border and immigration enforcement ($1.5 billion) than on climate financing annually ($100 million). This is part of Canada’s broader efforts to securitise and militarise the border to uphold its neoliberal migration regime that prioritises the economic contributions of people who are predominantly admitted under temporary work permits.

Those who do not fit into this mold of neoliberal migration governance are met with the violence of surveillance, interception, detention and deportation. For example, Canada deported nearly 17,000 people last year, which is the highest number since at least 2015 when the “progressive” leadership of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came into effect. This trend will likely continue as Canada’s border agency has allocated tens of millions of dollars to accelerate deportations in the coming years. 

Canada also cooperates with both its allies in the Imperial Core and countries in the Majority World to detect and deter the arrival of refugees and migrants, joining other members of the colonial empire such as the United States, EU Member States, Australia and Israel in externalising the border far beyond its territorial marking to control the movement of people. While the externalisation of the border causes immense suffering for people on the move, it is good news for the ever-expanding and lucrative border industry. 

“Market forecasts project that more border fortification around the world will lead to more and more revenue,” Todd explains. The global homeland security market, currently worth $625 billion, could rise up to over a trillion dollars by 2032. Canada is not an exception to this trend as it recently invested over a billion dollars in choppers, drones and surveillance technology, further militarising the border at the expense of human lives but the profit of companies looking to deepen their pockets amidst the expansion of artificial intelligence in what is ambiguously known as “migration management.”

In everyday conversations, I realize how most people assume it is a straightforward process to come to Canada. After all, we are such a welcoming, diverse and multicultural country, so how difficult could it really be? Yet this is far from the truth, as you need countless documents to prove you are worthy of entry into these colonial borders, and your odds of getting a temporary visa to work or study are as good as flipping a coin. Beyond its geographical privilege, it is virtually impossible to enter Canada due to restrictive visa and border policies, such as the “safe” third-country agreement with the United States. 

But as always, people resist these border regimes to seek safety and build a better life, especially amidst record-breaking temperatures, extreme weather events and the often-neglected slow violence of climate change, such as the destruction of crops and food systems or the pollution of critical water sources. Despite playing a leading role in contributing to ecocide, Canada’s priorities are set on spending billions of dollars on restricting migration, not showing real solidarity with the Global Majority who are forced to suffer under the slow and sudden violence of the climate crisis, to no fault of their own.

The connection between climate and migrant justice is also incomplete without considering the role of the military in contributing to this crisis. If the global military were a country, it would have the fourth-largest carbon footprint in the world. Canada is a major culprit in advancing the military-industrial complex as it spent an estimated $189 billion on military expenses between 2013 and 2021, which pales in comparison to its climate finance commitments ($2.65 billion between 2015 and 2021 and $5.3 billion between 2021 and 2026). For the record, the Department of Defence is also the government’s biggest polluter.

Amidst the pressure to meet the arbitrary 2% budget target for the imperialist NATO alliance (which could double Canada’s “defence” spending up to $82 billion annually), we must resist this pretence of Canadian exceptionalism, which allocates billions of dollars into violent militarisation and border imperialism to prevent a climate apocalypse. 

Climate justice is migrant justice

In October, Canada significantly slashed its immigration numbers, which will result in the deportation of over two million people in two years, or force them to live without status, leading to more precarity and exploitation. This egregious rollback on the “welcoming” fabric of Canadian society, ahead of the federal election, is largely due to the scapegoating of migrants by all levels of government that themselves have failed to prevent and meaningfully address the compounding housing, healthcare and affordability crisis across the country.

While the global climate emergency may seem separate from everyday issues, Hussan reminds us that the same actors causing misery to people in Canada are also wreaking havoc across the planet. “There is a system that is destroying the planet,” he says. “It is the same system that is immiserating the working class. It is the same system that is exploiting women and trans people. It is the same system that is destroying the healthcare system. That system is premised on the idea that war is good because war is profit.”

I wish more people would understand the connections within this oppressive system, which is not broken but simply working as intended. What happens in our daily life is inherently tied to global injustices, whether that is exemplified by how police forces which kill Black, Indigenous and racialised people in Canada are trained by the same Israeli occupying forces that murder Palestinians, or the fact that your price-gouging corporate landlord is also investing in fossil fuels that are destroying the planet and robbing you of your future.

As we imagine a better world for ourselves and work toward dismantling these systems of oppression, we will also need to fundamentally alter our relationship with the land beyond capitalist and extractive ambitions. Instead of futile land acknowledgements and symbolic orange shirts, we must urgently work toward real decolonisation by giving Indigenous Peoples full sovereignty and stewardship over their traditional lands.

On a global level, Canada must repay its climate debt to the Majority World by compensating countries for the losses and damages imposed through its colonial and extractive policies. The exhausting and never-ending excuses of not having enough resources fall flat when border enforcement and military spending can be divested to provide climate reparations and dismantle the colonial empire at home and globally to achieve real climate justice.

As Todd and others have argued, Canada must enable free movement for people who seek new opportunities as their livelihoods are jeopardised and their homes are destroyed amidst a crisis that they have played no role in creating. Instead of criminalising and restricting mobility, climate justice is only possible with the abolition of colonial and imperial borders.

At the same time, as Hussan explains, we need real solutions to prevent climate displacement in the first place. Discussions around climate policy are often domestic, absolving Canada’s complicity in global climate destruction. We need to address the real root causes of the climate crisis by suspending fossil fuel subsidies and mining extraction projects; reassessing global economic practices by cancelling debt and reforming trade agreements and the global tax system; and divesting from the military-industrial complex (which Canada is a key player through its support for Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians).

We are in a climate emergency, and Canada must act like it by rectifying its colonial and imperial violence. While it is easy to hide under the shadows of our southern neighbours during these turbulent times, we must go beyond the self-congratulatory rhetoric of Canadian exceptionalism and advance justice-oriented solutions to the climate crisis. If we truly want to stand in solidarity with the Global Majority, our actions must be centred around climate and migrant justice, not border imperialism.