Canada has always hidden a deep ugly streak of racism under a friendly affable facade.

Don't ever forget that Alberta used to be dripping with the KKK, and it wasn't considered an impediment to public office.

Canada are not a nation of people who were once innocent and kind who have been corrupted by American politics and social media. At worst, that shit has just let some people who would have been ashamed to admit this in public 20 years ago show exactly who they are. But make no mistake. Canada's history is one of othering and genocide every bit as much as the US.

It's fucking bad out there, but it's been worse in that country, and it's been worse by far. It's just that many of us are used a brief period when it was unacceptable to be open in your bigotry.

I'd like to go back to that. I'd like to see us demand accountability from our government to stop knuckling under to these idiots.

This is a country that had residential schools, completely eradicated at least one tribal group, and passed laws making it illegal to mill your own flour so that they could more effectively starve our first nations people.

This shit has been with us forever. Polite is very different from kind. Nice is very different from good.

We can and will be better, and this shit we're seeing is part of this growth. How we respond to alt-right idiots is CRUCIAL at this time.

I believe in the ideal of Canada. What it says it wants to be, what we were brought up to think it was.

But the disconnect between who we think we are and who we are is just about as deep as it is for the US.