Nancy's Notes

These words were spoken by the President of the United States.

“We’ve never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

I don’t use this language casually, but this statement is vile. Of all the reckless, ignorant, and cruel things Donald Trump has said over the years, this one has landed the hardest for me. Not because it is shocking, but because it erases sacrifice. It dismisses service, and he does so with the confidence of someone who does not understand war, coalition warfare, or the people who carry its consequences for the rest of their lives.

My readers have heard this before, but I am going to say it again, because context matters. Military service is not abstract in my family. My grandfather fought in the trenches of the First World War and was gassed at Ypres. He never truly recovered and died young as a result. My father was a pilot during the Second World War. My son serves today and his formal military education is in Military History and Strategic Warfare, which means I do not rely on slogans or soundbites when I speak about conflict. I rely on someone trained to understand how wars are actually fought. A different close family member, my nephew, served in Afghanistan.

So when someone who has never borne this weight speaks so casually, I hear erasure.

If anyone wants to pretend Canada “stood back,” let’s begin with a war that actually had a front line. In the First World War, Canada suffered approximately 66,000 deaths and 172,000 wounded from a population of just eight million people. The United States, which entered the war in 1917, sustained roughly 117,000 deaths, about 53,000 of them in combat, and approximately 204,000 wounded, from a population of around 100 million. Yes, the United States entered later. That matters but so does this. Canada’s losses were disproportionately high relative to its population. That is not the record of a country standing back. That is the record of a country carrying extraordinary weight.

In the Second World War, the United States suffered higher total casualties than Canada because it mobilized a vastly larger force. The U.S. recorded over 418,500 military deaths. Canada lost more than 45,000 service members. But again, proportion matters. Roughly ten percent of Canada’s entire population served.

Juno Beach is not symbolic, nor is Dieppe theoretical. These were not supporting roles. They were central to the conflict.

And then there is Afghanistan, where Trump’s claim collapses entirely. Afghanistan did not have a front line. It was an asymmetric, fragmented war, and that is precisely why the accusation that Canada “stayed back” is so dishonest. After September 11, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history. An attack on one was recognized as an attack on all. Canada did not hesitate. Canadian forces were deployed, embedded, and trusted. They operated alongside American and allied troops in some of the most dangerous regions of the conflict. Per capita, Canada suffered among the highest casualty rates of any NATO country.

Higher per-capita losses are not evidence of weakness. They are evidence of proximity to danger. Canadian soldiers were not placed forward by accident. They were placed there because they were capable.

My nephew who served in Afghanistan once described the experience not in terms of politics or flags, but in terms of people. Of standing on parade and watching coffins draped in the stars and stripes being loaded onto aircraft. Of serving alongside Americans he lived with, laughed with, and trusted with his life. Of a brotherhood that did not care about the patch on your shoulder, only whether the person beside you would do their job when everything went wrong. That is the reality Trump’s words deny.

So let me end this where it belongs. Canada, we need to remember who we are. We are not a country that hides behind others or waits to be asked when history demands action. Again and again, we have shown up because it was the right thing to do. That history belongs to us, and no one gets to rewrite it.

To those who serve now, to those who have served before, and to the families who carried the weight alongside you, this country owes you truth, respect, and the refusal to let your sacrifice be diminished.

And let’s be clear. This was not just an insult to Canada. When Donald Trump said this, he dismissed all allied forces who answered the call after September 11. Every nation. Every soldier. Every family. That level of contempt does not stop at a border.

And we will not be told now, not by someone who doesn’t understand war, and not by someone whose record shows repeated contempt for service, sacrifice, and basic human decency, that we “stayed back.” We will not accept lectures from a man who has mocked prisoners of war, demeaned the wounded, and treated allied sacrifice as disposable.

Canada knows who it is. We have buried our dead. We have carried our wounded. We have stood forward when history demanded it. We didn’t stay back. We never have. And myself and my fellow Canadians are damn proud of that.

What the hell just happened? Because in the space of a single afternoon, we went from another Trump speech to a NATO meeting and a flurry of claims that something meaningful had shifted around Greenland.

I keep Donald Trump permanently on mute. Not because I don’t care what he’s saying, but because I already know. It is always the same performance. The same grievances. The same declarations. The same certainty that he alone has fixed something no one else believes.

So when I saw the other interviews after his speech earlier today, I didn’t rush to turn the sound on. I made a ham and cheese sandwich. I poured a black coffee. And in the time it took to do that, we apparently moved from speech to meeting, and Donald Trump was suddenly sitting down with NATO’s Mark Rutte. And then an announcement on social media that a framework of a deal is in place. All of this within a couple of hours.

But that is where my brain pauses. Because NATO cannot negotiate land. That is not its role. NATO is a military alliance. It does not sell territory. It does not lease sovereignty. It does not speak for Denmark, Greenland, or the European Union on questions of ownership. So whatever Trump thinks he got, it cannot be that.

I am not going to let the glow of hearing our Prime Minister speak clearly and firmly fade just because Trump has started waving his arms again. That moment mattered. It still matters. And I refuse to pretend it didn’t just because the noise machine kicked back on.

But I am also trying to understand what this actually is. So I will use my crystal ball. And the only explanation that makes any sense is the familiar one. It’s just repackaging or regifting. Taking something that already existed, security cooperation, access, dialogue, and wrapping it up as if it were new. Handing it over so Trump can declare a win without anything materially changing. The diplomatic version of sneaking medicine into pudding. Everyone else knows it is the same gift. The recipient believes it is something different. And the adults in the room decide that letting him think he won is better than the alternative.

The speed alone tells you nothing real changed. Sovereignty does not move this fast. Land does not change hands in the space of a single afternoon. If something substantive had happened, we would already be hearing from Denmark, from Greenland or from the European Union. I would expect it to be loud but instead, there is silence.

NATO can speak for NATO. It cannot negotiate Greenland.

Any actual agreement involving land would require ratification, governance, and public process. None of that happens in the time between a speech and a photo op.

So yes, I think this is exactly what it looks like. A familiar pattern. A loud demand followed by a carefully wrapped non concession. Something that already existed, re presented, and declared a triumph.

I hope hoping I’m right, because the alternatives are worse. But I am also watching very closely. And until someone other than Donald Trump explains what just happened, this is not a deal. It is not a breakthrough. NATO, Denmark, Greenland. If there is something here, we need to hear it from you. Clearly and directly. In your own words.

Until then, I will assume exactly what this looks like. Something old, re wrapped, handed back as if it were new. Declared historic by the only person claiming it is.

I was in my home today listening to Prime Minister Mark Carney speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos. I didn’t expect to be moved by it in the way I was. From his first sentence, I knew I needed to stop and just listen. It was clear, serious, and grounded in the world as it is. By the time he finished, I was standing. And when it ended, I realized I had given a standing ovation to my Prime Minister, alone in my house.

Today, Mark Carney received a standing ovation at Davos. That matters. It matters because it does not happen often, and it does not happen unless something real lands. He spoke for a world weary of threats, coercion, and endless noise masquerading as strength. He spoke calmly, deliberately, and with purpose, and that steadiness carried far beyond the room.

His speech was just under seventeen minutes long. In that time, he laid out a clear-eyed assessment of the world as it is, the risks we face, and the choices in front of us. He spoke about middle powers, about cooperation, about building strength at home and working honestly with others. He spoke about economics, security, sovereignty, and values, not as abstractions, but as responsibilities. He named reality without despair, and without pretending that leadership comes from volume.

I hesitated before writing this. Many of my fellow writers and content creators are already talking about this speech. It is being shared and discussed around the world, and part of me wondered if there was anything left to add. Anyone can find it, watch it, or read it. But then I looked at what else filled the day.

Donald Trump spoke for two hours. Nearly every word was about himself and the United States, framed through grievance, power, and performance. There was no sense of a shared world. No recognition of interdependence. No concern for what comes next beyond his own interests. And that tells you everything.

What struck me so deeply about Mark Carney’s speech was not just its clarity or its brevity, though accomplishing that much in under seventeen minutes matters. It was the way it reflected something Canadians understand instinctively. We see ourselves as part of something bigger. We understand that our prosperity and security are tied to others. We know that leadership means caring about what happens beyond our borders, because the world does not stop at them.

The leader of our country spoke about cooperation, responsibility, and the future we share. That contrast could not be clearer.

That is why I decided to add my voice anyway. Not because this speech needs amplification, but because it deserves it. Let’s share it. Let’s push it. Let’s make this what rises to the top instead of a two-hour diatribe that offers nothing to a better world. Let’s show what Canada sounds like when it leads.

Here in Alberta today, under blue skies and barely any wind, something shifted for me. I went from that heavy feeling so many of us are carrying right now to something else. Even if only temporarily, I felt inspired. Encouraged. Revitalized.

This is one of the most important speeches made by a Canadian leader in recent memory. No, it’s more than that. This is one of the most important speeches made by any leader in recent memory.
And damn it, I am really proud.

There are moments in time when you know something has shifted. Not because someone announces it, but because you can feel it. You recognize it the way people always have, with disbelief first and then a kind of quiet dread, because you also know that once it passes, there is no going back to the way things were. This feels like one of those moments.

And yes, I know this is yet another conversation about Greenland. I am not dismissing Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, or Minneapolis. All of those matter deeply, and all of them exist inside a world already under strain. But this is the linchpin. This is the point on which everything else quietly turns, because if the rules give way here, they do not hold anywhere else.

Donald Trump doesn’t just want access to or to cooperate with Greenland. No, he wants ownership and control. He talks as if this is nothing more than a real estate transaction, and international law is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. We can talk about his narcissism, decline, or cruelty as unique, but history has seen men like this before. And history has repeatedly shown that political systems may recognize what is happening but only act when the cost becomes unavoidable.

We tend to remember the Second World War as if it began suddenly with the September 1, 1939, invasion of Poland. The remilitarization of the Rhineland, the annexation of Austria, the seizure of the Sudetenland, or the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia was not enough. Each step was met with caution, rationalization, and delay, not because leaders didn’t understand what was happening, but because they convinced themselves that each new violation could still be managed. The problem was that everyone had already taught Hitler that escalation worked. Poland was not unique just because it was bigger, more strategic, or more morally shocking than what came before. It was unique because it was the point at which Britain and France finally said that if this, too, was allowed, there would be no stopping it.

That is the lens through which I am watching what is happening in Greenland.

The justification keeps changing, which should tell everyone something. First, it was security, then it was economics. Now it is tariffs, pressure, and the misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. This law was never intended to give one person the ability to coerce allies and destabilize the global order on a whim.

If this were truly about defence, ownership of Greenland would not be necessary. The United States already has access, as it has for decades. At its height during the Cold War, the U.S. presence on Greenland included thousands of personnel across multiple installations. Over time, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, that presence was deliberately reduced. Not because Greenland became less important, but because ownership was never required to meet security objectives and they U.S. always knew they could increase presence on the island when needed.

Trump has been explicit about how he sees the world. He talks about the Western Hemisphere as a spear, about dominance, about who sits at the tip. His is not a National Security Strategy rooted in necessity. It is a worldview rooted in power and control. Minerals, rare earths and leverage. That is what this is about.

What is hardest to comprehend is not Trump himself, but the response around him. The Supreme Court of the United States needs to bring down their tariff decision. Congress and the Senate need to act. Please don’t let this be another moment in history where institutions hesitated, calculated, or stayed silent, and then spent decades explaining why they did not move when they still could.

Canadians need to understand how close to home this is. Our proximity to Greenland is geographic, strategic, and directly tied to our own Arctic sovereignty. If coercion against allied territory becomes acceptable, Canada does not sit safely outside that logic. If you think this stops at Greenland, you are a fool.

I do not envy the position Mark Carney is in. There is a narrow line to walk when dealing with someone who thrives on instability and spectacle. A balance between diplomacy, restraint and action must be maintained.

But this is also not a moment for partisan comfort. Just as the United States needs bipartisan action, Canada does too. Our livelihoods are at risk. Our economy is at risk. Our military, and the people we love who serve in it, are not abstractions. They are real, and they will be affected by what happens next.

And to Canadians who cheer this on, minimize it, or frame it as clever politics, including those encouraging this thinking from within Canada and particularly in Alberta, stop and think about what you are endorsing. This is not about oil or slogans or sticking it to the other side. This is about whether the rules that keep smaller countries from being swallowed still matter.

Remember. the allies did not enter the Second World War because of Poland alone. But Poland was the moment when the world finally admitted that the pattern could no longer be managed. What followed was catastrophe, sacrifice, and eventually a new order built on the idea that borders, alliances, and rules mattered. That order was imperfect, but it held because enough people understood what was at stake. That order is now in jeopardy.

And the danger, as history keeps reminding us, is not always where people are looking. Most of what determines whether something holds or fails is not visible on the surface. What appears solid can already be thinning underneath, and collapse does not begin when it finally gives way, but when everyone convinces themselves that what they cannot see does not matter.

I should say up front that I do know how to skate. Figure skating, however, would be a stretch. When I was young, I wanted to be a figure skater. I could skate well enough to stay upright, but not well enough to win anything. Athletics was never my strength. I was usually picked last in gym class, or second last if someone was feeling charitable. None of that harmed me. It taught me something essential. Wanting something does not make it yours.

That said, if there happens to be a Canadian female Olympic gold medalist out there who feels a little bored with her award and would like to share it, I am apparently living in an era where that sort of thing is now conceivable.

And maybe there’s another option. Since sports were clearly not my thing, perhaps the performing arts were. In my 50s, in fact, I had the opportunity to play Mrs. Boyle in a local production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. I died in the second act. Consistency matters. If anyone out there with a Tony Award feels that performance warrants recognition, I am open to that conversation. Apparently, earning it is no longer a requirement.

Awards are not aspirations. They are acknowledgements of something done.

Which brings me to today. Donald Trump has apparently been given the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize medal from María Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader. He did, in fact, receive the physical medal. What he did not receive was a Nobel Peace Prize in any legitimate sense of the word. That one truth remains.

As the Norwegian Nobel Committee states, “once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.” A medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot.

That distinction is not technical. It is fundamental. Without it, we are asked to pretend that possession equals meaning. It does not.

And yes, I’m choosing humour as it is the only thing that makes the embarrassment bearable.

We have all heard stories of Super Bowl rings ending up in pawn shops. Someone sold them. Someone else bought them. But the buyer did not become a Super Bowl champion. The ring did not transfer achievement. It did not rewrite history. Without context, it was simply an object. This is no different.

He can put the medal in a drawer in the Oval Office. He can frame it on a wall. He can show it to visitors. But it does not make Trump a Nobel laureate any more than my second act death makes me an award-winning actor.

As for María Machado, some argue she has a plan. That this was leverage. That this was the currency she believes she has to use on behalf of the Venezuelan people. Perhaps. That remains to be seen. So, although the episode has not yet revealed her motive, it definitely revealed Trump’s lack of character.

And this is where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore.

For years, we have been lectured by the right about merit. About how the “woke left” hands out participation trophies. About how people receive recognition they did not earn. About how DEI hires are presumed undeserving simply because they exist. Skill matters, we are told. Standards matter. Rules matter. Until, apparently, they do not.

Because nothing could be more divorced from merit than accepting an honour you did not earn. Nothing could look more like a participation trophy than a Nobel Peace Prize stripped of legitimacy and held up as proof of greatness.

If this were happening on the left, it would be mocked relentlessly. It would be called unserious and corrupt. But because it is happening here, we are told to nod along. To pretend this is normal. To confuse entitlement with achievement.

This is about a man who believes he deserves everything he wants simply because he wants it. And a movement willing to abandon every principle it claims to defend in order to protect that belief.

History will not be confused by this. But it also will not linger on it. This will not stand as a turning point or a great moment of consequence. It will be remembered, if at all, as another small, revealing episode. One more instance of a man in the Oval Office reaching for a shiny object simply because someone else once had one. No ambition or leadership. Just entitlement, briefly on display.

I have been quieter for a few days, not because I had nothing to say, but because everything I wrote started to feel like a variation on the same theme. Different headlines, same mechanics. At some point, you stop reacting to each new development and start paying attention to the pattern underneath it.

Every day, a new place name is thrown into the churn. Greenland, Venezuela, China, immigration raids and trade threats. It all sounds disconnected until you stop treating it that way. The justification changes constantly, but the logic remains the same.

Earlier today, I listened to an interview with Carla Sands, a former U.S. ambassador to Denmark during Trump’s first term. I did not know much about her, so I looked her up. During the first Trump administration, she served as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. A former chiropractor, socialite, and actress who married into wealth. No geopolitical background but all the skills of a Trump sycophant.

According to her, Greenland wants U.S investment. If it does not come from the United States, she said, it will come from China. As though those are the only two options available. As though the people who actually live there are incapable of choosing their own partners or charting their own futures.

When challenged about Greenlanders and Danes repeatedly saying they do not want U.S. control, the language shifted to protection and security, which can only be provided by the United States. Protection language shows up reliably when money and resources are involved.

Greenland is strategically important, yes. But it is also resource-rich, and much of what is there is currently inconveniently locked under ice. Ice that some people seem perfectly comfortable treating as a temporary obstacle. When venture capital voices talk about what people want, it is worth remembering that investment is rarely neutral.

None of this is new. Venezuela was never really about drugs. It was always about oil. The drug narrative simply faded when it stopped being useful. The same cycle repeats. The reason changes. The country changes. The prize stays the same.

What has changed is the extent to which these ambitions are openly disconnected from public support. Roughly 75% of U.S. citizens oppose any attempt to take or involve Greenland. That is not a close call. That is a broad rejection. At the same time, Donald Trump’s approval ratings are weak on the very issues he ran on. Immigration, cost of living, and international relations. When leaders lose public confidence, they rarely respond with restraint. They will escalate, increase distraction and look outward.

This is where Canada comes back into the picture. Another notable read today was an article by journalist Terry Moran titled The World Is Learning How to Live Without America. Moran spent years at ABC News before leaving. I might note that the departure was part of the new government-controlled media, but that’s another story for another day. The question he posed is the one that matters.

“If you were running a country or a global corporation, would you bet the future of your people or your firm on the stability, reliability, and sanity of the United States of America in the coming years?”

That question explains a great deal of what we are seeing.

Countries are not being dramatic. They are managing risk. European nations are reassessing supply chains. Germany is looking inward on defense manufacturing. Asian economies are hedging. Mexico is recalibrating. There is a quiet, methodical process underway that has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with reliability.

And the example he used was Canada and the work of our Prime Minister. Our PM has been clear about this, even if the significance of it has not fully landed yet. We can no longer think only north south. We have to think east west. Europe, Asia, diversification and stability. This is risk management in a world where unpredictability has become a feature, not a bug.

This is not anti U.S. sentiment. It is simply being realistic.

The post World War II order worked because the United States was powerful and cooperative. It underwrote institutions and valued alliances. It was predictable enough that others could plan around it. That era is ending, and not because the world suddenly changed its values, but because the risk profile changed.

When even the people of the U.S. themselves are rejecting expansionist ideas like Greenland, when independents are walking away, when allies are quietly recalculating, the signal is clear. This is not about one headline or one country. It is about trust. And for many people the United States has lost their trust. Consider me one of those people.

Canada is not stepping away from the world. We are paying attention to it. And that is something worth noticing.

And so we don’t forget…

WHERE ARE HELL ARE THE EPSTEIN FILES??

I don’t often post on Sundays. But as we head into another unpredictable week, I wanted to set a tone. A fairer one, I hope.

There is a rhythm to politics that most of us don’t consciously track, but we feel it anyway. Generally, the second Monday after the Christmas break is when things actually begin to move. New polls appear, conversations restart and overall the volume rises.

The strange thing is, it doesn’t feel like we ever got a break this year. The world didn’t pause. The headlines didn’t soften. The stakes didn’t reset. It has felt relentless, and that may be part of why everything feels so charged right now.

Over the past week, especially since the incident in Minnesota, there has been a lot of discussion about how people can look at the same images and come away with completely different interpretations. Some say that divide falls neatly along party lines. I’m not convinced it’s that simple.

It reminded me of that moment years ago when the internet argued endlessly about the color of a dress. Some people were certain it was one thing. Others were just as certain it was another. Scientists explained perception. Psychologists talked about context. What stayed with me wasn’t the answer, but the reminder that none of us sees the world objectively.

We all look through a lens. This is how I write. This is my lens. You have yours.

And I want to be fair about something. I cannot expect everyone to be as impassioned about geopolitics, history, or international power dynamics as I am. If your priority is paying rent, affording groceries, or figuring out whether you will ever be able to buy a home, then places like Greenland or Yemen feel distant and abstract. They do not feel urgent. I understand that but I also struggle with it.

Because distance is often an illusion. What feels far away geographically or politically has a way of arriving at our doorstep faster than we expect. Take Greenland. Most people in North America have never spent much time thinking about it. Americans have not. Canadians have not either. It is a place on a map, vaguely northern, rarely discussed. So when serious conversations arise about control, security, or influence there, many people shrug. If something happens, it happens. It does not feel connected to their lives.

If you are sitting in a small town like Monroeville, Alabama, or in Bieseker, Alberta, Greenland does not feel relevant. You are focused on your own survival. That makes sense.

I see it differently because I think in maps and globes. Because I have knowledge of the North. Because I try to hold a broader picture in my head, even when it is uncomfortable. That does not make me smarter or more informed. It simply means my lens is different.

So I am not angry at people who do not share my sense of urgency. I am not dismissive of people whose lives do not allow the time or energy to follow deep investigative journalism or long historical threads. But I am asking something of you.

I am asking people to consider that the bigger picture matters even when it feels disconnected from daily life. That global events do not happen in isolation. That every decision, every conflict, every power shift affects the next thing.

Sometimes that requires something as simple as pulling out a map. Look at where places actually are. Look at who borders whom. Look at alliances and proximity. Look at trade routes and security corridors.

For example, when Donald Trump says he does not want Russia as a neighbor, take ten seconds to look at a map. Look at Alaska, then look at Russia and the Bering Strait. Look at how close the two countries already are. Facts like that matter, because they reveal how careless some statements really are.

We are living in a moment where major issues stack on top of one another. Iran, Greenland, Venezuela, energy policies, trade and domestic unrest. And underneath all of it are unresolved truths that struggle to surface because distraction is constant and convenient.

When transparency is delayed, when accountability is buried under noise, when facts are drowned out, it does not just damage trust in institutions. It damages trust in reality itself.

As we head into this week, I do not pretend to have answers. I am processing in real time, just like everyone else. But I will say this may be my last gentle post for a while. My only real goal here is simple. If one person who normally scrolls past deeper material decides to read a piece of history, or learn something about NATO, or understand a little more about the Cold War, or simply take a moment to look at a map and see the world differently, then this was worth writing.

I do not need everyone to be as impassioned as I am. But I do hope more people will look. Because understanding the world we live in is no longer optional. And if a simple glance at a globe can expose the nonsense, then maybe the real danger isn’t ignorance, but how comfortable we’ve become with it.

Today I finally tried to turn my attention back to some practical things that needed doing, the kind of everyday details that make life feel normal again. While searching through old emails, I stumbled across a video of my son giving a presentation for an undergraduate psychology course.

I remembered the class. I remembered the assignment. He had forwarded it to me for feedback. He was talking about Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment. What I hadn’t remembered was how deeply unsettling the subject is when you hear it laid out plainly. Sitting there listening to him explain it again, not just as a parent, but as someone watching the world right now, something clicked into place for me.

After the Second World War, and following the Nuremberg trials, the world struggled with how ordinary people could participate in extraordinary harm. Over and over, those on trial offered the same justification. They were following orders. They were subordinate. They believed responsibility rested elsewhere. That explanation disturbed many people at the time, including Milgram, who wanted to understand how obedience actually operates in everyday people.

In the early 1960s, Milgram conducted a series of experiments in a controlled university setting. Participants were recruited from the general public and told they were taking part in a study on learning and memory. They were assigned the role of “teacher.” On the other side of a barrier was a “learner,” who was actually an actor participating in the study.

The teachers were instructed to ask questions. When the learner answered incorrectly, the teacher was told to administer an electric shock. The shocks were not real, and the researchers knew this. The teachers did not. They believed the person on the other side was actually being harmed.

Each wrong answer required a stronger shock than the last. As the voltage increased, the learner cried out, begged to stop, and eventually went silent. When teachers hesitated, an authority figure in a lab coat calmly instructed them to continue.

These teachers were not cruel people. They did not want to hurt anyone. But most of them complied. All of them reached levels of shock they believed could cause serious harm, and the majority went all the way to what they believed was a lethal level. Not because they were evil, but because they were being told to proceed by someone they perceived as legitimate authority.

Relistening to my son explain this again in the video I understood why this has been sitting at the edge of my thinking for months.

I have spent a long time writing about obedience. About military service members facing questions around legal and illegal orders. About institutions filled with good people trying to reconcile their conscience with their role. About watching behaviors escalate while being framed as lawful, necessary, or unavoidable.

I am speaking directly to citizens of the United States, to those in positions of power around the President, and to those who support or excuse what is unfolding. And I am also speaking to Canadians who align themselves with the same ideology, who cheer it on, excuse it, or believe it could never happen here simply because a different flag is flying.

In just the last 48 hours, there have been shootings in two cities involving I.C.E. and a person is dead. All in the name of immigration enforcement. Now comes the what as become familiar, leaders speaking in lock step. They sure didn’t lower the temperature. They turned it up full blast.

This is where Milgram stops being a classroom lesson.

This is the voltage increasing. Not all at once, but increment by increment. Through rhetoric. Through policy. Through the suggestion that something bad will happen if people do not comply. Through reassurance that responsibility belongs somewhere else.

Milgram described what he called an “agentic state,” where people stop seeing themselves as moral decision makers and begin to see themselves as instruments carrying out someone else’s will. That shift does not require hatred. It does not require belief. It only requires authority and pressure.

That is what makes this moment so dangerous. Soldiers are being moved into more places. I.C.E. agents are being deployed into communities. Enforcement actions are intensifying. And too many people in power are either encouraging this escalation or refusing to stop it.

Congress and the Senate may not be holding the switch, but they are not stepping away from the experiment either. And the people carrying out these actions are increasingly being placed in the exact psychological position Milgram warned about. Obey now. Question later. Responsibility is not yours.

Someone I follow once said that history does not repeat itself exactly, but it echoes. That feels painfully true right now. This is not the past replaying itself, but it is the same pattern resurfacing under new conditions.

Milgram’s experiment is not obscure. It is taught in basic psychology classes. But it is easy to forget what it actually tells us. Democracies do not unravel only through loud extremism. They unravel through compliance. Through good people doing what they are told because they believe they have no other choice.

That is why I am writing this today. Not to accuse, and not to sensationalize, but to remind. If this moment feels unsettling, that is because it should.

Obedience is not inherently wrong. But obedience without moral accountability is how ordinary people become participants in extraordinary harm. And once we understand that, we lose the excuse of ignorance.

Yesterday, Donald Trump was asked by the New York Times whether there are any limits to his global power. His answer was simple. “My own morality, my own mind, is the only thing that can stop me.” And what exactly does that mean?

If we do not think everything I have just written matters, there is your reminder. Milgram did not study monsters. He studied people. And he showed us what happens when authority is unchecked, responsibility is displaced, and obedience becomes the point.

Lately, in my political writing, I’ve received more than a few messages from people in my age bracket telling me that if someone came near our country, they would bear arms and defend it. Boomers and older than Boomers. I respect the sentiment. I really do and I even thought “maybe I could do that.” But today it reminded me I may be ill equipped for that type of scenario. Heck I’m too uncoordinated to manage a trip to my back yard. I went outside to untangle my dog. She’s a 110 pound 13 year old husky/lab cross who still believes she is a spry two year old wolf. Even though we live on 17 acres, she has to be tied because the husky brain says run forever and the senior body says absolutely not.

So out I go. I’ve got my boots on and have the leash in hand. Reminder here that this is rural Alberta and neighbours are not nearby. There’s a creek on one side, railway tracks on the other. Just me and the prairie.

What I forgot, entirely, is that recently there was some digging done near the septic system. A vent thing that left a message hole. But it’s now covered by snow. Deceptively innocent snow I might add.

Important visual detail: I work from home, which means most days I change from nighttime pajamas into daytime pajamas. Today’s daytime pajamas were a satiny, Chinese-style kimono situation with matching pants. This was not tactical clothing.

I step forward. The ground disappears. I don’t fall into the hole. I fall ALL the way into the hole. Full body, gone like a character from a 60’s Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

I’m wedged. My ankle hurts. My wrist hurts. I start calling for help. And I realize two things at once. No one can hear me and satin is not a traction fabric.

I try to climb out. I slide back in. I try again. Slide again. I attempt what can only be described as a shimmy.

At this point the wrap around kimono has opinions of its own and is opting out of the situation entirely. So there I am, clothing compromised, fully stuck, echoing into the vast Alberta nothingness and thinking, well, this is how people disappear.

Eventually, through a combination of stubbornness, one cooperative wrist, and pure spite, I manage to extract myself. The dog watches calmly. She does not help. She does, however, get to pee.

Now I’m inside. Warm and changed and mostly uninjured. Pride severely bruised. And this is where I circle back to the gun thing.

If the fate of the nation depended on me navigating snowy ground in satin pajamas, holding a rifle we’re doomed.

So no this post is not my normal political post. This is Nancy Unfiltered, and today Nancy Unfiltered needed a break. Today is about knowing your limits. About winter, about aging dogs and their people, hidden septic vents, and the important distinction between bravery and balance.

The upside? It is a stunning Alberta winter day. Blue sky. Sunlight. Barely a cloud. Not even that cold. And so far, despite the heaviness of the world there are still spaces I can find joy and humour.

For those who know me, you’ll say: That is so Nancy. For those who don’t, you’ll say: This woman does not have her poop together.

Both are correct.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this growing insistence that the world should be divided into “natural” spheres of influence, that geography somehow grants permission for domination. America here. Russia there. China over there. As if power follows longitude lines. As if maps, rather than people, decide who belongs to whom.

Part of the problem, I think, is how we look at the world. A lot of people see it flattened, rectangles on screens, Mercator projections that distort size, distance, and relationship. I’m a globe person. The room I’m sitting in right now has four globes in it. I like maps too, but globes tell the truth in a way flat maps don’t. They force you to see proximity, curvature, connection.

So when people start talking about “natural” spheres of influence, I want to say grab an actual globe.

Because once you do, the story takes on a different view. If Europe is part of the Russia sphere then why not Greenland? If Asia is supposedly one sphere, what does that make Australia? New Zealand? Are they suddenly “Asian” because a strongman says so? Or are they only included when it’s convenient to someone else’s power narrative? Or are these just places waiting to be assigned.

The Americas, after all, are only called the Americas because someone named them that. Geography didn’t vote.

I heard a comment last night, in reference to Venezuela, framed in a tone that immediately rang a bell “that the U.S. were there in Venezuela and they were going in to help the repressed people.” And suddenly, all of it lined up.

As many of you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada’s North, much of it alongside Indigenous peoples, through education, research, and volunteer work and of course aviation. I’ve listened to residential school survivors. I’ve worked in spaces shaped by the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, always asking the same question: what can I do that actually makes a difference?

And one thing has always been unmistakable. The moment someone says, “we’re here to help,” the dynamic changes.

Indigenous peoples in Canada know exactly what that phrase has meant historically. It was spoken by churches, governments, and corporations. By people who arrived convinced they were superior, convinced they knew better, and uninterested in the cultures, governance systems, and sovereignty already in place.

“We’re here to help” has never meant help. It has meant assimilation, extraction and control.

We soften that history now. When we hear Hudson Bay Company we think of striped blankets and heritage branding. We rarely talk about the Hudson’s Bay Company as a corporate force that exploited Indigenous labour, disrupted economies, and entrenched colonial power structures. That part of the story is uncomfortable and essential.

Because it’s the same logic we’re seeing again. Venezuela, Latin America, The Middle East, and Greenland. Different places. Same posture. The help is always conditional. You can have it as long as you accept our economic priorities, our political systems and our cultural expectations. As long as your land serves our needs. As long as resistance can be reframed as instability or ignorance.

Greenland is potentially a more modern example. A small Indigenous population on a vast landmass rich in strategic value. We’re told the United States needs it for “security,” despite already operating a military base there and having full access through allied cooperation. The people of Greenland never asked for this. Historically, they never have to.

And now that logic is edging closer to home. They haven’t yet said “we’re here to help” about Canada. Instead, they’ve said something just as revealing. That we can’t survive without them.

That our economy depends on them. That our future depends on them. That our sovereignty is negotiable because of proximity, resources, or reliance. The ‘we’re here to help’ comes next. And that’s the danger.

Because once you accept the premise that you cannot stand on your own, you’ve already surrendered something essential. Canada does not need saving.

I am deeply proud of this country, imperfect, unfinished, and still learning. Proud of our commitment, however incomplete and flawed, to reconciliation. Proud that “Canadian” is not defined by race or religion. Proud that our identity is not built on supremacy.

So no, you don’t get to redraw this tapestry. You don’t get to tell us who we are, what we need, or who benefits from our land.

This land is my land. Not your land!

And to our Prime Minister, keep getting on the plane. Keep building alliances. Keep doing the unglamorous work of protecting sovereignty in a world that seems increasingly eager to repeat its worst instincts. Because we’ve seen this pattern before. And to Donald Trump and those who think like him: don’t tell us you’re coming to help or that we need you. We know exactly how that story ends.