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Canada would be naïve to assume that this is a uniquely American affliction. Our political culture is inextricably linked to America’s. Every day, U.S. political debates shape Canadian media, frame our arguments and influence our vocabulary. Polarization radiates outward, often imported wholesale by Canadian politicians and pundits who follow the political seasons south of the border with near obsession. And while Canada’s gun laws may prevent spillover in the form of bloodshed, corrosive habits of thought travel much more easily across the world’s longest undefended border. Political violence need not come with a U.S. passport.

Nor is such violence unknown in Canada’s history. In 1868, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Confederation, was shot on an Ottawa street. In 1970, the Front de libération du Québec kidnapped diplomat James Cross and murdered Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte, triggering Ottawa’s invocation of the War Measures Act. In 2014, a gunman shot and killed a soldier at the National War Memorial before storming Parliament Hill itself. These episodes are rare, but they puncture the illusion that political violence is somehow foreign to Canadian democracy.

The risk today is that the kind of polarization roiling American democracy could make political violence more common. Canadian politics already exhibits worrisome symptoms. Debates over climate, immigration, conflict over land use and resource development projects with Indigenous peoples, and pandemic mandates are increasingly framed as existential struggles between hostile camps rather than disagreements within a shared civic space. Online platforms amplify polarization, often repackaging U.S. narratives for Canadian audiences. Whether it is guns, gender politics, or geopolitics, political discourse is becoming angrier, more tribal, and more prone to dehumanization.

Guardrails are required. Politically, leaders must resist the American temptation to make every issue a “with us or against us” contest. Casting every dispute as a battle for the nation’s soul may be good for clicks and fundraising, but it corrodes Canada’s tradition of consensus. Parliament should recommit to the art of compromise rather than mere partisan theatre.

Institutionally, Canada must buttress the architecture that prevents healthy division from hardening into violence. That means protecting media independence, investing in civic education that can teach citizens to argue without hatred, and compelling social media companies operating in Canadian democracy to be more transparent. It also means ensuring security for public officials, but without creating a culture of fear that severs them from the citizens they represent.

Canada above all needs a cultural guardrail: a recommitment to civility, restraint and compromise. Our democracy depends less on formal structures than on habits of mutual respect and a willingness to disagree without dehumanizing. Polarization erodes those habits, turning citizens into enemies rather than fellow participants in public life. The defence against political violence lies in cultural norms that prize dialogue over confrontation and persuasion over intimidation. They will endure only if Canadians insist on practicing them.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a tragedy for the United States. For Canada, it must serve as a warning. For what happens in America rarely stays in America. And if bullets are shredding the fabric of democracy south of the border, they may eventually do so north of the 49th as well.