In recent weeks, pundits and political leaders have been united in their calls to end political violence. The killing of U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk prompted a wave of public statements. Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre condemned the act, and Liberals have echoed calls for peace and civility. Across the political spectrum, politicians rallied around the principle that violence has no place in democracy.
It is important to notice the speed and intensity of that response. When the political class sees one of their own—especially a white, male, conservative political figure—harmed, their empathy flows without hesitation. When political violence targets Indigenous, Black, brown, queer, disabled, poor, or gendered communities, their outrage is significantly more absent. Often, they can even justify or downplay that violence, which may even be actively carried out by the state itself.
Situating political violence
The World Health Organization defines political violence simply: “the deliberate use of power and force to achieve political goals” (WHO, 2002). But this phrasing risks being so expansive that it becomes difficult to contextualize. Does all state power rest on violence? Some anarchist traditions and abolitionists would say yes. More importantly, the WHO sidesteps the deeper question: what do we mean when we say something is violent?
“Violence” is not a neutral category. Authorities are quick to name and condemn things like throwing the first brick at a riot, blocking access to a logging road, or slashing the tires of a police cruiser as violent. Yet they rarely apply that same label to acts like building weapons for war or passing laws that deny people health care. Why is something like property destruction automatically condemned, while the slow production of artillery shells or the bureaucratic denial of life-saving care is not?
Some scholars refer to these latter categories as “structural violence,” that is, violence that is built into the structures of our political and economic systems. Those types of violence—unlike the spectacular acts like riots—are often tightly woven into the fabric of everyday life and invisible. That does not make them any less violent—in fact, many of these forms of structural violence produce more death and misery than even the most brutal types of obvious political violence.
Recognizing this imbalance is crucial if we want to take seriously the everyday political violence that communities endure. Political violence is more than assassinations or mass shootings. While these acts are certainly violent, the category also describes how laws, institutions, and state power structure everyday life. For marginalized communities, political violence is not a one time event, it is woven into our experiences.
Political violence in the Canadian context
Once we begin to recognize this type of political violence, we can see how it is embedded in Canada’s own systems.
When Alberta and Saskatchewan introduce laws restricting queer and trans youth from expressing themselves or accessing gender-affirming health care, they are exercising political violence. These policies police gender expression and create hostile environments that place already vulnerable youth at greater risk.
The construction of government backed pipelines is both an ecological disaster and a deliberate act of violence against Indigenous nations. RCMP raids on Wet’suwet’en land defenders criminalize Indigenous sovereignty, while the resulting environmental destruction of fossil fuels undermines the health and livelihoods of entire communities. Here, the slow structural violence of fossil fuel infrastructure met the explosive violence of militarized police raids, where heavily armed agents of the state had an authorization to kill if they viewed it as necessary.
Political violence shapes who counts as a legitimate member of the community. Alberta’s new citizenship-on-ID policy perpetuates racial profiling and effectively creates two classes of residents: those seen as fully ‘Canadian’ and those the authorities will treat with suspicion. Such policies erode the ability of migrants to participate equally in public life.
The federal government is engaged in political violence when it denies Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada full labour protections, pathways to permanent residency, and language supports. This imposed precarity makes it risky for TFWs to speak out about abuse, wage theft, or unsafe working conditions. Their vulnerability is enforced and maintained through state action which created a system to allow for employers to exploit and harass migrants.
Police and security companies repress, surveil, arrest and discipline students protesting for Palestinian solidarity or racial justice. Their activism is framed as a threat to democracy rather than a necessary contribution.
These are not isolated incidents. They are pervasive, institutionalized forms of political violence that rarely spark bipartisan calls for reform, action, or empathy.In Canada, solidarity among elites runs deep. Their lives and their ability to move safely through political spaces are treated as inviolable. Meanwhile, the lives of those already pushed to the margins are treated as expendable.
Whether something is classified as political violence, in this framing, is not about power itself but about whose power is disrupted.
It is not about democracy, but about which bodies count as democratic subjects worthy of protection.
Beyond selective empathy
Political violence is a defining feature of the world we live in. Indigenous, Black, brown, queer, disabled, and poor communities have always lived under its weight. The danger lies in treating political violence as exceptional. As only worthy of recognition when it affects elites.
Our challenge is to name, resist, and dismantle the everyday violence embedded in white, capitalist, colonial nation-states like Canada. Solidarity cannot just flow upwards, protecting those who already wield power. It must flow laterally and down to the front lines, toward those who have always borne the brunt of violence.
Until we recognize political violence as an everyday reality for marginalized communities, calls to “end political violence” will remain unconvincing.
