Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum follow a similar playbook as those he first imposed in 2018. What’s different this time around? The deeper fear they’ve reignited: not just economic hardship, but the threat of U.S. domination. With talk of Canada becoming the “51st state” circulating in political and media circles, Canada’s leaders on the left and right called for renewed economic self-reliance, with proposals ranging from national east-to-west pipelines to greater support for the auto industry. 

Although politicians and commentators have often framed this economic protectionism as a pragmatic response to Trump’s tariffs, the idea carries deeper, more troubling currents.  Underneath the calls for protecting Canada’s sovereignty lies the question: whose sovereignty is being defended and at whose expense? 

The irony is glaring. While Canadians fear the hypothetical threat of becoming the 51st state, Indigenous Peoples in Canada have lived through generations of sustained assault on their sovereignty. The very land Canada claims to defend has never been fully ceded—Canada’s control over Turtle Island came through broken treaties, unilateral legislation, and ongoing jurisdiction overreach. 

But Indigenous sovereignty has never been extinguished—only denied. From Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders opposing pipeline construction on unceded territory, to Mi’kmaq fishers exercising Supreme Court–affirmed rights in the face of violence, to Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation) legal challenges to mining on lands they never surrendered. And most recently, Treaty 6 chiefs have demanded Alberta’s premier back down from separatist rhetoric—reminding Canadians that the land they seek to exert sovereignty over is already governed by pre-existing Indigenous orders.

The panic over Trump may feel new to settlers, but Indigenous communities have long faced—and resisted—leaders who govern through coercion, resource extraction, and disregard for consent.  Yet their voices remain sidelined in the national conversation about sovereignty and self-determination—a conversation built on land that was never freely given.

Rise of reactionary nationalism 

Canada’s nationalist reflex is not new. In moments of external pressure, whether economic or geopolitical, appeals to national unity and protectionism tend to surface. But in settler colonial contexts, nationalism doesn’t just unify, it simplifies. It reinforces the fiction of Canada as a singular, unified nation—one that often sidelines the existence of distinct Indigenous nations, laws, and sovereignties within its borders.

When Indigenous voices aren’t at the centre of nationalist discourses, attempts to solidify Canada’s sovereignty become a way to shore up the legitimacy of the settler state itself. 

The solutions politicians propose to economic uncertainty often involve the appropriation of Indigenous lands that are under active contestation. For example, in British Columbia, Xatśūll First Nation is taking the province to court for approving a mining project on their territory without consent, arguing it violates their rights and title.  

For Indigenous communities, these projects are not abstract debates about national security—they are direct threats to land and jurisdiction.

The absence of Indigenous sovereignty in nationalist discourse 

Even as Canadian leaders sound alarms about the decaying relationship with the United States and the threat it presents within our borders, they systematically exclude Indigenous Peoples from decision-making. Despite the fact that early treaties established frameworks for mutual respect and coexistence, modern discussions about Canada’s survival rarely mention these agreements. Instead, Canada’s political class marginalizes Indigenous perspectives, treating them as peripheral rather than foundational.

This new wave of reactionary nationalism also fuels the rise of disinformation. Residential school denialism is not just disinformation, it is a deliberate assault on the historical and constitutional foundations that should undergird Canada’s relationship with Indigenous nations. In nationalist narratives that frame Canada as blameless or under siege, there’s little room for Indigenous truth to be heard—let alone upheld.

These narratives don’t just distort the past—they actively justify the exclusion of Indigenous voices in shaping the present. Indigenous community leaders, legal scholars, and knowledge-keepers—those who hold vital constitutional and territorial knowledge—are rarely consulted in mainstream crisis discourses. Their exclusion is not accidental—it reflects Canada’s ongoing unwillingness to grapple with the true, plural nature of sovereignty on Turtle Island.

Economic pragmatism or colonial encroachment? 

In response to Trump’s renewed pressure, Canadian leaders have turned once again to resource extraction as a symbol of sovereignty. They frame these projects not just as infrastructure, but as symbols of sovereignty—proof that Canada can stand on its own. But sovereignty built on extraction is sovereignty built on stolen land.

Across party lines, proposed responses to economic uncertainty continue to sideline Indigenous sovereignty. The Liberals’ “One Window” infrastructure approval model promises faster project approvals on a two-year timeline, even for projects on Indigenous lands—echoing the approach that both the federal and provincial governments used to push through Coastal GasLink over Wet’suwet’en opposition. With this approach, governments  treat land primarily as a commodity—bypassing Indigenous consent in the name of economic survival. The Conservatives, for their part, promised to repeal Bill C-69, weakening environmental assessments and the duty to consult. 

Instead of responding to Trump’s threats by re-entrenching settler power, Canada should be asking more fundamental questions about how sovereignty is shared, distributed, and made meaningful across Indigenous legal orders. 

Toward plural sovereignties

A just and durable vision of sovereignty does not rest on the domination of Indigenous territories, laws or lives. It rests on the recognition that multiple, overlapping sovereignties exist within Canada’s borders—and always have.  Indigenous legal orders are not historical artifacts; they are living systems of governance that continue to shape political and legal life.

Plural sovereignty doesn’t weaken Canada’s response to Trump; it strengthens it. It means embedding Indigenous legal orders into environmental and economic decisions from the outside through co-jurisdiction, binding consent requirements, and treaty relationships that affirmed mutual obligation rather than land surrender. 

This model doesn’t mean saying ‘no’ to infrastructure, it means saying ‘yes, but on shared terms’—and it’s already happening: 

  • The Six Nations of Grand River are co-developing the largest battery storage facility in Canada, the Oneida Energy Storage Project, proving that energy resilience doesn’t require fossil fuel dependency or federal fast-tracking, but Indigenous leadership.
  • Along the Pacific Coast, 17 First Nations have secured a $335 million investment to develop a conservation-based economy in the Great Bear Sea—creating thousands of jobs while protecting marine ecosystems under co-jurisdictional stewardship between B.C. First Nation, the federal government, and the provincial government. 
  • The Blackfoot Confederacy is restoring buffalo herds across the U.S.–Canada border, reviving transboundary stewardship rooted in Indigenous legal orders that predate and resist settler nationalism. While Trumpism reasserts hard national borders, the Blackfoot Confederacy is practicing a sovereignty that predates and transcends those borders. 
  • The Haida Gwaii Management Council successfully defended land governance against corporate claims, rejecting the idea that state-aligned industry is the only path to economic security.

These aren’t just isolated actions—they are political alternatives to the nationalist reflex of border control and resource extraction. Where Trump-style nationalism clings to extraction, hard borders, and centralized settler control, Indigenous sovereignty offers a vision rooted in mutual obligation and jurisdictional continuity.

If the border and critical resources are the new battlegrounds of sovereignty—as it is in Trump’s America—then Indigenous communities should not just be at the table, but at the centre of the conversation. Indigenous nations like the Mohawks of Akwesasne, whose territory spans the U.S.–Canada border, have long governed across settler lines. Excluding them from tariff discussions ignores lived jurisdiction and undermines any serious claim to plural governance.

Likewise, when Treaty 6 Chiefs called out Premier Danielle Smith’s separatist rhetoric, they weren’t just defending treaty rights—they were reminding us that sovereignty in Canada is shared, not owned. If nationalist responses to Trump rely on erasing that fact, then they are not defending Canada—they’re destabilizing it.

A truly resilient Canada will be one that moves beyond singular visions of sovereignty toward relationships of mutual recognition, responsibility, and plural governance.

Anything less is not sovereignty—it is fear, dressed as unity.