Amid rising geopolitical tensions and resource struggles, it’s worth examining how Canada is viewed by those beyond its borders — and how Canadians might better define their place in the world. To the Trump administration, Canada is seen as little more than a frontier.
Historically, invading colonizers treated these lands and their peoples as ripe for extraction and exploitation. That same attitude persists today.
It’s a myopic and short-term view. Slogans like “pursuing our manifest destiny to the stars” and “drill, baby, drill,” along with renaming Mount Denali from its original Indigenous name to McKinley, reflect the U.S. administration’s frontier outlook.
The Trump administration’s ambitions to annex Canada, displace Gaza’s Palestinian population and turn it into a seaside Riviera, acquire Greenland “one way or another” despite Inuit aspirations for independence, and extract resources from Ukraine in exchange for peace and security reveal this extractive mindset in stark terms.
As an observer, it is clear that in response to these threats, Canadian leaders must articulate a grounded vision of the country as a homeland — one that acknowledges the use of natural resources and human labour but frames both within a long-term ethic of stewardship. Such a vision fosters sustainable ways of living, rooted in deep relationships with each other and with the land.
One way to illustrate the dangers of the frontier mindset is through a provocative but effective analogy: pornography. The aim of pornography — beyond profiting from human weakness — is to deliver short-term pleasure to the viewer at the expense of the person being observed. The dignity, desires and humanity of the one being viewed are irrelevant to the self-centred voyeur.
But parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, friends, farmers, fishers, ranchers and hunters will all tell you that relationships with living beings cannot be sustained in this way without doing grave harm to both our psyche and our environment. In the end, nobody benefits. Without strong bonds, neither the voyeur nor the one being viewed is left whole.
Canada, Greenland, Palestine and Ukraine are not frontiers. They are homelands — distinct places where people live, work, play and die. The identity of place shapes how people behave and how their personhood is formed. It reflects a conscious, enduring commitment to where they belong.
This connection is absent in those who see land and people as resources to be exploited. When outsiders operate with no personal stake, no long-term accountability and no emotional ties, the consequences are devastating. The frontier appears distant, the damage impersonal.
How people treat the land mirrors how they treat each other. And how they treat each other reflects how they use — or misuse — the land. For more than 200 years, industrial powers like China, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have followed this logic. Their behaviour has played a central role in creating today’s climate crisis.
The world can no longer afford the illusions of the frontier perspective. The Trump administration would do well to heed the religious texts it so vocally claims to uphold: “You reap what you sow.”
So what are the peoples of these homelands to do? They need not respond to every provocation from the Trump administration. Its objectives are transparent. What’s required is to anticipate and outflank, not merely react.
Project 2025, a sweeping policy blueprint designed to guide a future Republican administration, makes the strategy plain. Developed by the Heritage Foundation, a U.S.-based conservative think-tank, it outlines plans to centralize power in the presidency, dismantle parts of the federal civil service, roll back environmental regulations and reshape foreign policy.
These proposals reflect the same frontier worldview — extractive, short-term and authoritarian — that threatens homelands beyond the United States. The barrage of announcements and distractions is just background noise, designed to obscure the real agenda.
Instead, the priority must be to develop a compelling and just vision — one that grows from the imaginations of people in these besieged homelands. Alongside hope, there must be practical strategies for trade and cooperation rooted in sustainable institutions and a deep appreciation for difference and resilience.
Gather at the kitchen table. Discuss. Plan. But don’t take the bait. Prepare the younger generation to think critically, resist seduction by hate or greed, and stay grounded in their communities.
For those of us watching from afar, it’s clear: Canada’s destiny won’t be found on Mars. It begins when people look one another in the eye and recognize their distinct yet interwoven homelands. Through strong relationships and deep interconnection, division becomes impossible.
Karim-Aly S. Kassam is International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Cornell University.
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